The Journey Through Information Literacy and Reference Services

Before starting this course my interest in resources was more about fiction and meeting teacher’s curriculum needs with non fiction books to help students access information they needed,either when researching or to help expand on the learning outcomes teachers were working on.

Encyclopedia use was not very prolific as was the use of atlases, dictionaries, almanacs and even some of the other references, as some of these resources were already in classrooms and teachers are now collecting all the topic books for their classes for use and going to computers much quicker for their students to collect additional information. When the students come to the library it ‘s usually to sign out books for their personal use.

My journey has turned out to be a rethinking of my role and the way I think about reference services. I am much more open to the idea of reference services being provided through technology especially after some of the discussions and searches I done to learn about electronic resources especially encyclopedias. I have really thought about the expense of print and how we can resolve the issue by giving students more interesting resources that draw them into a subject as many online encyclopedias use multimedia aspects to present the content. As to the use of databases and indexes I personally do not have control over this area as it has to be a district decision to purchase the services. I can hopefully be a more informed advocate of these services and give reason why this change would benefit the district’s schools.

For my role as a TL I do not really have time to work with the classes in terms of doing research. Our Superintendent has talked about wanting more TL time for schools and hopefully with a school our size it would mean a .4 or .6 rather than the .2 job as it is now, allowing for some collaboration between the TL and classroom teachers. I really feel that working with some of the teachers, we can find the time to incorporate information skills which have not been taught by the TL in the past few years due to time factor. In my TL listserve I found an interesting research statistic that says there is a growth in new information of about 66% each year. Through collaboration, students will be taught information skills that help students effectively find information and evaluate the appropriateness of it for school and in their lives. Teachers have so much to teach, that they don’t spend the time needed to help kids find material in other sites other than wikipedia and google. The TL can deal with these skills and teach students the skills to evaluate sites use different resources such as DVD’s, print and other sites that are more appropriate to work through the research process with the students.

I still have more to learn. I feel that my searching technique can personally become more effective and effortless which will carry over to helping students search more effectively. I do need to look at the reference section of the library and promote this information to teachers for there are many sources that they can use with small groups and their classes that still have good information. I am going to use the encyclopedias for a lesson I read about in Library Media Connection to help younger students find information quickly by opening encyclopedias at the beginning, middle and end using the second letter to show them the progression of words in an encyclopedia.

In this job I find I always have something to learn which always make for an exciting interesting job.

Scholarly Article #3

Jansen, Barbara A.  “Relieving the Confusion:  Location and Access Made (Relatively) Easy.”  Library Media Connection  Apr/May (2005): 29-30.

Reading through the discussion write ups on periodicals I was happy to read Donna’s statement “It takes me a long time to find just the right article that I want to use; sometimes I feel overwhelmed in the searching process.”  I have often felt this way when I research databases for some of my courses, especially when I’m sporadic in my use of the library. 

This made me think if adults supposedly are having problems what about younger elementary students searching.  I began wondering if I could make it simpler and perhaps get some additional ideas I could pass on to the students.

Jansen in the article speaks about student’s levels of cognitive ability at ages 9 -12 to follow the multistep process of finding a resource, spell words correctly when searching and being overwhelmed when getting results of a search by the vast numbers of articles.  She also mentions kids having had little experience reading non fiction which makes reading for information difficult for them.  She talks about easy access to sources by making links available and putting books on reserve to for specific topics.  When this is done, time is then available to teach skills to access information in the sources.  

For Upper elementary students accessing databases such as Searchasaurus, Proquest, and others she mentions exploring the best search terms for the topics the students are working on and try to vary the search to see the research coming through.  Another strategy is to help students make a list of related keywords for their topics as well as words that may have been used in their books or the site.  

Another suggestion which I have not used before is to use the Find ...Edit feature on the browser when an article has been located on the database and input the keywords and related words in Find, which brings up more related articles to their topic, and may be less stressful for the students.

Jansen provides some good reminders about strategies to make the information gathering process less of a burden so students can focus on finding the information within the source they’ve found, whether book or database article.  Often we don’t spend as much time on skills which save students time finding information such as looking for keywords in the text, scanning the topic sentences and captions for  information they need.  As Jansen says these are important skills we can help teach students in the earlier elementary years and build on even if the process isn’t internalized till they are older.

I don’t agree with Jensen about students not being able to read non fiction information text for I know within my school and many others in the district we are working hard using Adrienne Gear’s non fiction strategies to help students understand non fiction text.  I also see the interest in non fiction material that is signed out by students on a daily basis.

The information which I found really interesting was the Find Edit functions which I have not had time to try yet.  If this works as well as Jensen says and limits the results, I will be using this fuction both for myself and with the students it can save us all a great deal of time sorting through the results.  

Capstone Activity for Evaluating an Online Encyclopedia

As we do not subscribe to a database within the district, I decided to evaluate the online encyclopedia students may use through the Public Library

Resource: Columbia Encyclopedia

Format: online at the Gibsons Public Library through the Student Research Center

Scope: the encyclopedia notes it is the largest one volume encyclopedia database unmatched in scope and reputation for accuracy and authority. It contains 51,000 entries on a vast range of topics including current hot topics, updated geographical political and statistical information. It has 84.000 cross-reference links for the most complete and up to date encyclopedia ever produced. The database uses entries from the Columbia Encyclopedia the Canadian Reference Centre which includes Canadian, American and Uk periodicals, full text reference books and biographies and over 550,000 photos, maps and flogs. The middle search plus database provides full text to 140 popular middle school magazines with lexiles indicators.

Emphasis: List of search topics indicate it covers arts&media, business, careers,health math,history, science, technology, sports social studies, english and language arts as well as current issues

Authority: Articles from the encyclopedia use over 200 editors and academic advisors. Articles from the encyclopedia cite where the information was taken from and the year of publication and author. The magazine, newspapers, radio and tv news transcripts are signed and cited for reference.

Style: the style of writing is for upper intermediate students to adult as articles are taken from many periodicals and newspapers. They do have a lexile scale at the bottom of the search page to limit your results but I found it didn’t affect my results.

Recency: The online encyclopedia is updated daily. The periodicals have up to date articles on the Chile earthquake, mostly from new outlets and periodicals.

Viewpoint and Objectivity: I typed in First Nations and found a variety of articles on Canadian First Nations issues. When typing in native people history and geography as well as articles on stereotypes resulted pointing to an objective view.

Arrangement and Entry: search is by subject topic, which you can break down into subtonic, or you can do keyword or boolean search. When the each come up I really like that the result list indicated where the results came from such a magazines, biographies, newspapers etc.

Index: subject is broken down into subtopics and then you can type in your search within the subtonic

Format: There are illustrations and photos but I found I did not have access to all the photos that were included especially in the html full text. You can enlarge the font by highlighting and zooming in. A dictionary is available to look up unfamiliar words.

Cost: free use with library card or you can go to free site encyclopedia .com which uses columbia encyclopedia entries.

Evaluation: I found that I would not really use this encyclopedia with elementary students as the reading is at a fairly high level. The graphics are not strong as most searches come up as html full text and photos are not seem. I think it is fine for everyday need of info as I can get articles from various media sources. but I would not honestly pay for this encyclopedia as it does not appeal to me and definitely wouldn’t appeal to students.

Applying Standards to Reference Service

In examining the library for reference resources I thought we were at an acceptable level but after reading Achieving Information Literacy, I did change of thinking. We are below standard in periodicals, newspapers, and periodical indexes while some non print resources are at acceptable levels. The funding for 30 periodicals is terribly expensive so we’ve never had an acceptable level and even below standard numbers is more than we’ve ever had in the library. Reference material is also below standards as some material dates back to the late nineties and early 2000’s

Types of resources once again puts us below standards in terms of online subscriptions and free databases as we have zero of those. We do have word processing software and several data projectors and white boards. The library is fully automated for circulation and cataloguing. We can access other schools in the district resources and students and families can access our catalogue from home, putting us in the acceptable level for computer software. We have three computers for searching in the library, which are used once in a while for research. However we have a portable lab of thirty mac laptops computers which all the classrooms have access to. We also have about 30 more IMacs which were in a lab and have now been distributed to classrooms for use.

The school has a population of about 200 and receives about $20 per student most years for funding. We have a total of about 13,000 books which is exemplary according to AIL with about 60 % of the books fiction and 40% non fiction. The Video/DVD resources have about a hundred titles but most are still in video format and older, which we are slowly trying to replace, so this is below standards as well.

The TL time is .2 and clerk time is also about a .2 which is below standard for a school that size.

Using the AIL numbers we do come out as having many resources below standard but after being in a number of other libraries within the district I believe we are actually more acceptable and exemplary in terms of resources. It is all relative to the circumstances we have had within the district and the funding which is dependent on our school’s size in my district.

After completing my standards write up I couldn’t help but feel that the AIL is the standard to aim for, however it is really difficult in the public system to attain the levels advocated by the CASL. TLs would be very happy to build up area below standards but it is always at the sacrifice of some other area in the library. When Leslie states that she has a budget of $160,000 to share with two other librarians in her school, my eyes widen in amazement at the amount of money. I understand this is private money funding International Schools, as I can’t even think of anywhere in Canada that amount of money is given to school libraries. Do we under value the importance of libraries in N. America or do we just not have the public funds to put into these resources for I can’t help but think what a great discrepancy. I would hope to get one tenth of what Leslie spends but even that is an unreality. TLs make do with the few thousands they are given each year and work to patch up the sections that not up to date or worn out but never able to achieve the standards we would all like to have in our libraries.

Does Technology Really Make a Difference?

Scholarly Article #2

Loertscher,D (2009, December). Does Technology Really Make a Difference? Teacher Librarian, 37(2), 48-49.

I was interested in reading this article after my assignment 2 write up because one of my concerns has been the importance of using more technology to make gains in students’ learning.

The article looks at a number of technologies that are used by educators such as interactive whiteboards, video games, virtual worlds and devices, mobile devices, computer assisted instruction, educational television and a number of other technologies. The author points out that the “best technologies are those that promote higher thinking, imagination, creativity and engagement, Augmented reality and data visualization/analysis tools get higher marks.“

Loertscher has advise for TL in this age of technology tools. He asks that TLs build their knowledge of how these technologies work and their unique features that will help teaching and learning. He talks about how TLs should not go out there and bring all these technologies to teachers, but instead pick one tool to demonstrate associated with a learning challenge teachers may have with their student’s (ie)writing progress, rather than overwhelming teachers with all the new tools. He suggests TLs act as a doctor diagnosing a problem, searching literature to find several possible successful tools that have been used for the problem, in this case collaborative writing using free tools from google docs, or a wiki. Then meet with the teacher and some of the students to test these possibilities. One tool is chosen and then used with the whole class. If success is substantial, this class is then in charge of going to other classrooms to teach other students the process they went through using the same tool. Success is monitored and if writing growth is not substantial, the process begins again.

Having read the article my thought was, what a gigantic task for the TL to take on, trying to know the workings and features of these different tools. True, we should try to be technology leaders in the school and some TLs are good at that role, but what if technology is not as strong a skill as it should be. I do go to workshops when new technology is being taught and try to practice it when I can, however it is not always possible to know all the ins and out of the tools and sometimes I feel very behind the ball on some of the programs and tool usage. Some of the tools are easier to use and more familiar than others, which alleviates the problem of having to learn all these tools. There are people within the district and sometimes even in the school who have strong skills using these tools whom can lend a hand to help acquaint the TL with the knowledge they may need. I agree TLs can help teachers find solutions to learning challenges by researching TL list serves, leading to suggestions of tools that have been successful and sometimes receiving guidance of where the TL can go to learn new tools. The article says “adults charged with technology responsibilities do not automatically make a difference. Fear and reluctance to change predict certain mediocrity.” so we either lead or in some cases get out of the way as it is too important and exciting to just sit back.

TL have an exciting, interesting job that allows them to be leaders in areas of curriculum and information literacy. We are constantly looking for new ideas to help teachers and technology is another area that we can use. I don’t think we have to be experts on these tools, but be the liaison who is aware of what may be needed to help teachers and then call on an expert either within the district or school to help the teacher become familiar with the tools that help with the problem. TLs are great problem solvers, they are committed to helping teachers and if knowledge in an area is poor, I believe TL will stand aside and bring in expertise that is needed to help teachers, regardless of pride involved.

Change of Thinking Re- Electronic Encyclopedias

Throughout out this process of examining reference resources in our libraries I have been looking at references with a more critical eye than I did previously. To be honest I didn’t really look critically at the encyclopedias that were on my shelves except to say I should get rid of some of these sets as they aren’t being used and they are more that a little out of date.
When doing the reading for general and specialized encyclopedias and looking at the different online resources I started to rethink my print preference for all things reference and other resources for the library. Just thinking about replacing some of the encyclopedias we have with most of the items being ten to twenty years old, I really had to think about the cost of replacing these materials over the coming years. Would it be worth it to replace all of these in print or would the best solution be to pick one or two resources and then use electronic resources to supplement the print.
With the multimedia aspect of electronic resources my mind started to look at these resources as more preferable as they would be updated more frequently than once a year with the yearbook. Of course the multimedia component is what really drew me to electronic material as I believe kids would be more willing to read longer and search for more information as they have access to animation, games, videos rather than a printed page. I feel this solution would help resolve both financial and a more interesting resource for reference sources.

Collaborative Program Planning

Scholarly Article

Harvey, Carl A. “ The Teacher’s Take on the School Library Program.” School Library Monthly 26 #4 (2009): 45-47.

Working in the library I’ve had very little time to do collaborative units with my colleagues. Much of the time has been filled with teacher’s preps and a variety of other teaching roles such as working with reading and resource groups, which has meant little time to work collaboratively with teachers. Collaborative teaching has been something I’ve done in my teaching career with other classroom teachers and I’ve always considered it a wonderful experience for sharing of ideas as well as the flow of teaching that occurs between these adults while in this situation.

I wished to explore further what teachers believe are important aspects of the library program and if they feel collaboration is important part of the program.

Teachers have more and more demands asked of them each year. I think many of them feel that even more of their time will be given up when meeting to cooperatively plan and teach a unit with the TL. I believe they forget that there are some very good benefits TLs bring to this relationship. Reading the article THE TEACHER’S TAKE ON THE SCHOOL LIBRARY PROGRAM which asked teachers questions about their school library program I was pleased to note that teachers do value the TL because he “models and team teaches with the classroom teachers not only to encourage us to use these programs and services but to help us build the self confidence to try new things.” I think it’s very true we want teachers to utilize our expertise in information skills to teach to their students which takes pressure off teachers to teach skills that that are not so commonplace in their enormous teaching loads and to just sit back for these lessons, perhaps learning new ideas for themselves and in return the TL can also learn from the teachers they work with. It a symbiotic relationship. The collaborative relationships bring two brains together for more innovative ideas, a chance to work with another adult, as well as an opportunity to share the teaching and marking of work.

Another point made in this article is the initiative the TL needs to “monitor the needs of the staff in order to help them in their goal to meet the students’ needs and improve the quality and variety of educational instruction.” I feel that this area is not my strongest point. I do listen to teachers discussing their needs in curriculum and try to offer ideas on materials they can use and I even purchase additional resources if I can. I use to attend both intermediate and primary meetings but in the past year both groups have met only once, to discuss other matters than curricular. I don’t always feel comfortable being the one to start the conversation and offering ideas and opportunities to teachers, for I’m not always confident in some of the curriculum areas that teachers teach year after year. I also don’t want people to think I’m being pushy and a know it all. I tend to choose the teachers I feel more comfortable with, but I must say I don’t approach the staff as a whole, which requires a more outgoing me, than I actually am.

The final point I wish to make is that when asked about the leadership characteristics TLs should have, the outcome was “confident to share ideas and knowledge for meeting educational needs of students, communicative to professionally collaborate with the staff and cooperative to become active teaching member of each grade level team. “ These characteristics are personal goals I wish to embody as a teacher and teacher librarian. I do recognize that my job requires these skills to make myself more pro active to keep TL jobs, to make teachers and parents aware of the skills their students should have to access accurate reference and research information they can use in their daily lives. Offering teachers my knowledge and my cooperation in a non judgmental manner which invites them to ask for my help with curriculum and even tiny steps towards collaborating on a small project which opens them up to seeing the benefits of working collaboratively on a unit are goals I work at and continue to develop.