How Useful Is Library Instruction?

I'm a huge of fan of library instruction. No, take that back. I'm not a huge fan of library instruction; I actually think library instruction is kind of pointless. Case in point: I was in the elevator at Gorgas the other day and two students got in holding worksheets. They were joking around about being on a scavenger hunt and I happened to notice that one of the instruction librarian's name was on the sheet. They were doing something for a library instruction session. Those library students in the elevator with me started to giggle and when asked we told the students that we were librarians. As the doors opened, we wished the students good luck and one of them said, "I don't need it. This is pointless because I'm a senior".

That took me by surprise because what is a senior doing in a library instruction class? I could see if it was an advanced course that involved some research, but it was clear that this was a very easy instruction session aimed at new users to the library. So what was a senior doing in that session? And more importantly, what was he going to learn?

A lot of librarians think that instruction is pointless. The students don't listen; they're too busy playing on the computers. But I think that, when do well and correctly, instruction can be very beneficial. I'm a huge fan of teaching information literacy. What that means is teaching students how to search so no matter which database or catalog they end up in, they can find what they need. Information literacy also teaches how to evaluate sources to determine how credible they are. This is especially important when looking at web resources. But plain old library instruction? Teaching students about call numbers and where books are in the library? That's what is pointless. In this day of fast access to peer-reviewed journal articles at any time, students need to know about databases and searching in all types of formats. There are very few students who are going hunting through the library for a book when they can find something else just as good online.

So in this library student's opinion, classic library instruction is outdated. But teaching students the mechanisms for search is a skill they can use throughout their education and throughout life.

Next Week is Banned Books Week!

September 26-October 3 is the annual Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week (BBW) is a week-long celebration of the fact that we have the freedom to read whatever we want! It also puts an emphasis on the importance of the First Amendment. "Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States." (ALA)

Next week I will be spotlighting what librarians and library students can do to celebrate banned books and intellectual freedom. Banned Books Week is on the biggest events a librarian (especially public and school librarians) take part in every year. Get excited for Banned Books Week and don't forget, READ BANNED BOOKS!!

For more information on Banned Books Week, check out http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/ and http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Academic Library = Student Center?

Not a day goes by where I don't read (or hear) about how the academic library is outdated. No matter how many coffee shops, group study rooms, and laptop computers you put in, it's still a library, and apparently that's outdated. That's certainly how the president of Goucher College in Baltimore, MD saw it. When the old library was due for renovation, he scratched that and set up plans to build a multi-million dollar student center, with a library in it. The Athenaeum, named for the ancient Greek central gathering point where people came for a variety of purposes—serious, frivolous, cultural, artistic, and social, houses a restaurant, workout room, bathroom complete with shower, commuter lounge with a full kitchen, an art gallery, classrooms, a forum, and a library. All classic library features including circulation and reference desks, open stacks, and quiet study areas are included; however, the president felt that students needed a student center more than they needed a serious separate library.

On one level, I find that this makes a lot of sense. From what I can gather, Goucher College is a small school with a large chunk of commuting students. Commuting students often have trouble fitting in to a campus community and creating a more student-friendly space where they can hang out as well as study does make sense. Goucher College is also very small and it is doubtful that much major research takes place there. However, I feel like lumping a library in with a student center lessens the library's importance. Academic libraries have been undergoing major transformations over the last decade from traditional book warehouses to more technology-friendly "information centers", but this is the first time I've ever heard of adding work-out equipment and a restaurant to a library. It appears to me that the president of Goucher College does not appreciate nor understand what truly happens in an academic library. Yes, the library should be a central gathering place on campus for students, so it should have amenities to make spending large quantities of time there better, but it's main focus should be academic not social.

Is Goucher College taking the concept of a comfortable library a little too far? Should the academic library and the student center be merged? And when does the library cease being a library and just become a mere room in the student center?

The Future of Libraries: A Library Student's Response

I figure I better jump on the bandwagon and blog about this because the rest of the library world sure is buzzing about it. I've read multiple blogs on the subject, talked about it in class, and been bombarded by it in my inbox through the various list-serves I subscribe to. What is it? It's an article that CNN posted on September 4th. Find the article here. Now I usually like CNN; it's the only cable news I watch and when I want up-to-date, happening now information it's where I go on the web. But I never thought that CNN would be behind the times.

Their story is an old one. The old library is out; the new library, or information center, is in. So? We know that. In fact, I've blogged about it in a variety of ways before. It was a huge aspect of this year's ALA conference. We discuss it at school. It's on the minds of librarians everywhere. So why is CNN just now realizing this? I can only speculate that it's because of the press libraries have received over the past few months. Library business (although not budgets) are booming. More and more people are turning to libraries in this time of need for free information and entertainment. Go here and here to watch news stories about the subject. With all of this press, I can only assume that reporters are more interested in looking at what goes in libraries and how they are changing. Old news, right?

CNN talks about the introduction of gaming centers, the increased reliance on the internet as opposed to print sources for reference help, and librarians blogging and tweeting. None of this is new; in fact, I've blogged about all of this, and I'm certainly not at the forefront of major change. The article also talks about librarians referring to themselves as "information professionals" or "information specialists". Now I don't know about you, but in my intro to LIS as a graduate student we talked about this concept. How librarians are information professionals because we access and provide information; but not all information professionals are librarians. The term is not interchangeable and I think any librarian worth her salt knows that difference.

So CNN is not breaking any new ground by publishing this story. It's old news, something librarians have known for quite sometime. Change isn't particularly groundbreaking in the library; as librarians we face that change everyday and deal with it as it comes. We're moving the books out to make room for more computers, adding the coffee shops to help students study better, creating gaming centers to attract teens. But what we're not doing is changing our principals. The library will always be a place where information can be found for free and without bias. No new technology or "hipster" librarian, or "information scientist" is going to change that. Now that's news worth reporting.

A Day in the Life of a Librarian

It seems I actually have something in common with the Annoyed Librarian (I know, I'm shocked too). We both picked up on the trend about blogging about daily lives and we both wrote a blog about it. Check out mine here and hers here. While her day (and everyone else's) is infinitely more interesting than mine, it's still nice to know that people find sharing the mundane so fascinating.

I haven't blogged in a few days because my job has been very mundane over the past few weeks. I'm still working on that barcoding project, but expect to finish today or tomorrow. I imagine I will have another project dealing with the Media Archives as soon as a finish this one. It's been pretty quiet around here; in fact the library world has been really quiet. I guess now that ALA is over, things have calmed down or a lot of people are on vacation. (I'm going to go with the latter.) So I have very little to share.

Know anything new in the library world? Have something to share? Post a comment below or email me!

A Typical Morning

Wow! Two posts in one day! :) I'm really starting to like this blogging thing. Anyway, I felt the need to share this awesome newspaper column that came through my American Libraries Direct newsletter. I love humorous little takes on the everyday life of a librarian, and found this one particularly amusing since it so resembles mine. So as a treat I decided to chronicle my morning in the Reading Room for you.

8:00 Arrive on time (yay!) and use code to get in. Turn first two sets of lights on and lobby printer/copier on. Put stuff down and turn on computer. Grab keys and open computer lab. Note that there are still copies of the CW on the floor; recycle them and turn on printer/copier. Head to the back to turn on last set of lights. Sign into the computer and check in the newspapers.
8:15-9:30 Really quiet. Check email, facebook, twitter, and blogs. Search for new blogs to read. Write a new blog post. G-chat with friends.
9:30 Request to borrow a pen. Followed quickly by requests to borrow a ruler, replace the staples, and fix a jam in the copier. Suddenly the computer lab is full.
9:52 Answer the phone then hang up on a solicitor.
10:00 Head to the back to put some barcodes on tapes. Listen to my ipod while mentally complaining to myself about how much I hate doing this.
10:45 Eat my snack and go pick up the mail. Rejoice because there aren't that many newspapers. Then sulk upon remembering they all come in on Thursdays. Check in the newspapers and put them on the shelves. Make mental note to recycle the old ones on Friday.
11:15 Briefly consider going back to barcoding, but the lure of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is too strong. Answer a question about the copier and then return to reading.
11:45 Eat lunch at desk while reading. Check email, facebook, twitter, and blogs. G-chat some more.
11:50 Put more paper in the computer lab printer/copier being careful not to overfill this time; that's why it kept jamming up.
12:30 Leave work to go home.

Not all that exciting. Sometimes I actually get good questions, but mostly I fulfill the role as copier refiller and pen hander-outer. Sometimes I wonder why they pay me to do this; then I stop thinking that and accept my lovely paycheck. :)

How was your day?