Wikis

I have very mixed feeling about using wikis after using it to create my pathfinder. I like the layout we used for this class, but I really preferred using Sharepoint (Frontpage) to make an actual web page in html in our other class. This was a lot simpler for the assignment, but rather restrictive since it didn't allow for the embedding of videos or really designing an appealing layout for the page. If I were doing it in my library, I would prefer to take the extra time to build the site to host on the school server instead of using a 3rd party wiki site for hosting. I want students to be drawn in visually, and then hopefully they can value the site for its functionality! They are definitely a tool I would suggest to non-tech savvy teachers to use, or in a setting where collaboration is needed, but for my personal pages, I want the freedom to be me.

Pathfinder

I was very lucky with my pathfinder topic I chose. I knew that it was an area that the 5th graders studied...but after I began gathering resources, I had a huge project handed to me for their time in the lab. It had a rubric, but almost no actual resources for them to use. I started directing them to the sites that I was already collecting, and I'll be sending them directly to the pathfinder the next time they come in. We have been discussing the powerpoint layouts, but these sites will be a wonderful time-saver as they begin to scour the web for the information that they need to include. It is amazing to me when things work out like this!

Search and Destroy?

I feel pretty confident in my ability to find answers to even the most obscure questions. The internet has literally put the world at my fingertips. Almost every question that friends and family pose to me is something that I can find and answer for them with just a few minutes online.

These questions are BY FAR the exception. We have intentionally made these questions fall into the category of those that would probably arise only once every couple of years...not 24 per every two weeks. While it is a novel approach to making a simulated research desk...I'm not sure that we wouldn't (as a class) be best suited with a "race" format of addressing and answering questions online. These questions are designed to take time...yet a real research desk setting (in this modern age) seems to be more about speed and calm under pressure. I've developed that on my own for personal reasons...but I think the rest of my cohort could really benefit from this different sort of pressure. We need to figure out how to use Google under the pressure of a patron sitting and staring at us AS WELL AS using the few databases that may be available to our particular library setting. That is just where we are as a society, and the majority of people over 35...as well as a deceivingly large portion of those of us under that age...just aren't experienced enough to do it.

I would propose breaking up the S&D questions into two categories...half that are pretty obscure and best answered slowly on our own, but the other half used as a speed game in class. I think that could really help us expand as researchers just as much as these nuanced questions that we currently delve into!

Article #3

Loertscher, D. (2009). The Front End Load of Student Research. Teacher Librarian, 36(4), 42-3. Retrieved April 14, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

This article was a short but potent reminder of all the excuses that student use to procrastinate and avoid using their library. I think that this would be a great article for everyone to have printed off and posted behind the main desk at a library. It is easy to forget what challenges and inhibits an open relationship between the librarians and students, so an occasional reminder would be a great idea. Sometime I think we tend to spend too much time thinking about developing/re-shelving our collection and bags of trick, and then forget about doing the things that make the library an inviting environment to DO the research that with the tools that we strive to make available!

Google searching Vs Databases

I can't stand the thought of missing out on good articles because my carefully constructed search didn't catch them. I am used to giving Google a general idea of what I want and letting them present the options that are most valued through their extensive algorithm. When I do a general search in that manner through an EBSCO database...I am always disappointed at the results. I just don't tend to trust the results from a paid database. I feel like they are grandfathered in from long standing contracts with educational, public, and research libraries and have therefore become complacent in their efforts to expand and improve their product. There are few established names in the research-providing field that they don't really have to compete and can live off of name recognition alone.

I really hope Google Scholar can at least start to push them. Even being a free tool, the availability and ease of search will hopefully make them at least worry about their collective monopoly enough to push in a modern direction with their search functions. Google brings out both the best and the worst in its competition. Maybe Google Scholar will, at least indirectly, allow us to grow as a collective academic community in our ability to publish, find, and connect our ideas in this age. Every level up until you reach academia are able to share ideas openly and (relatively) "free"-ly. Why can't we?

Second Reference Observation

Finally, a busy afternoon in the library. I have stopped by and "used the computer" a few times to try and find a day where there were people there and utilizing the reference desk. I chose to do this one "silently" because I didn't want to let them know I was waiting on an actual busy day for them, in case this would somehow offend them (since most days just didn't seem busy.)

A group of 4th grade kids working on their presidents. They were tenative on approaching the desk, but after one student asked where the presidential biographies were, they all started to stroll up asking questions as they worked. I wrote down a few.

How do you spell Gerald Ford?
Is Bill Clinton still alive?
Who was the 19th president?
What is polio?
What decade is the 19th century in?

She was very polite in helping them find the books and navigate websites through NCLive finding the information they were looking for for their class...as well as all the random questions that popped into their heads. They bombarded her for a solid 40 minutes of my observation, but she never seemed to get frustrated with their questions.

After the students left an older couple come in with a dispute on how long a cubit and a span is. It came from the Bible story of David and Goliath, where it said Goliath was six cubits and a span. The wife said it meant that he was over 10 feet tall, but the husband held firm that he had heard it mean he was just over 7 feet. The librarian on duty first took them to a bible reference book, but ended up just searching for it online. Google said that it translated to 9.75 feet, so the wife thanked the desk and they left.

A guy came in looking for old yearbooks after that. Almost every time I have been in the library someone seems to ask about those, so I guess that is a big demand there.

As my time and I discretely walked out the door, there was a guy coming in looking deep in thought and heading directly toward the front desk. I'm not sure what his question ended up being, but I'm almost certain he had it answered in a polite and helpful manner!

Article #2

Buckland, M. (2008). Reference library service in the digital environment. Library & Information Science Research (07408188), 30(2), 81-85. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2008.03.002.

Buckland's article focused on the premise that a reference library's goal should ultimately be to empower the user to find information on their own (as opposed to empowering the library staff to find the answers). It went back through history to discuss how reference service has almost always been defined with the librarian as the mediator between the patron and the answer.

I think the biggest problem we face in moving to an atmosphere where users are capable of using the resources on their own, is the fact that librarians are still having a hard time using the continually changing reference tools. However, the current generation of librarians entering the field are digital natives and will find it much easier to teach the tools that they grew up using.

Therefore we may be moving toward a time where we are capable of changing the meaning of "reference service." The tools are much simpler now than they were 20 years ago, so the required skill/experience/intelligence level to have a self efficient patron is much lower.

This is a core belief that I held long before the article brought it up, however, because I want people to be comfortable looking for their own answers and have worked to teach this for a long time. A movement to change the views of our field is great, but my views were pretty much there all along.