It’s the week before finals. That’s all I have time or energy to say… ♥ to those of you in academia and to our public counterparts who see our procrastinatory slaquers during our off-hours (and all other times, I’m sure).
I taught this writing class last night and had a really awesome time. The students were very with it and into what was going on. Y’know, the type who actually respond when you ask them stuff.
But this one guy was especially interesting.* He was prone to outbursts as well as various mutterings.
I can’t for the life of me recall what he said but it was out there. My response was, “Well…that was a radical interpretation of the text.” We all paused for a moment before resetting and moving on.
I asked another student to tell me about the source of the article he found, who he thought the intended audience was. He thought for a while and the proclaimed, “poor people!” I foolishly attempted to extract an explanation but it just didn’t track. Hey, at least he gave it some consideration.
*By interesting I mean I later discovered he’d changed the desktop of the computer he was at to a picture of me.
I have been thinking about instruction a lot recently. I’m the kind of nerd who actively thinks about teaching when she’s not doing it. This relates directly to why I don’t have a life, but that’s kind of outside the box. Anyway, I was thinking about the nursing students in particular over the summer because I was fretting about taking over that collection this year. I’m not really sure what kind of relationship the past librarians who collected for nursing had to the department, but I tend to think of myself as “the nursing librarian” much more than “the nursing selector”. As of this year that’s pretty much how I introduce myself to them when I teach their classes in the library.
They are an interesting bunch in that they have the chance to come and see us every term, but not all of them do. We book standing classes for them the first three days of the first week of every term. They aren’t required to attend a class and thus we have that self-selection thing going on. The students we see are like info literacy and research sponges. They eagerly absorb anything I put out there and have awesome questions—but we only have 50 minutes to an hour.
This got me thinking that those particular students would probably come back if I created a space and invited them. They are intensely busy, it’s true, but I think they see the long-term savings in time. I also think they might advertise to their peers who, understandably, hadn’t had time to figure out why they needed us by the first or second day of the term.
Recently I read an email on the information literacy instruction list about a librarian offering small group instruction sessions. Basically if 5 or more students commit to the session the librarian will teach it. This particular librarian (at Spokane CC, if I recall) works with a lot of nursing students so this caught my attention. Nursing students are a great target bunch for all kinds of library services because they have such focused research needs, at specific and predictable times of the year.
I’m not surprised that the small group offerings were well received—but I’m still hesitant to start offering such a thing at our library. We recently started offering a 1 credit class and I don’t want to offer small group sessions and derail the 1 credit class. We need steadyish enrollment to keep it going, I’m sure.
I spoke to nursing faculty at the start of the term and they were into the idea of a customized LIB 101 nursing-specific 1 credit course. Ideally I’d like them to make the course mandatory for their students, but that comes later. I gave them my card and have been waiting for them to call or email, but I haven’t heard from anyone yet. Yet another reason I want to hold off on the small group offerings. I don’t want to devalue the credit course in the eyes of the nursing faculty, it really would be perfect for the students. Also we spend a lot of desk time with nursing students. Which is fine, but you know…
Our class is designed to start several weeks after the term has begun. We also don’t assign a research project, it’s up to the student to have one of their own. We start late enough in the term that they’ve already been assigned something for their writing class or biology class or perhaps some assignment that didn’t even come from faculty at our college—whatever. They bring their assignment to class and we work through the entire process over several weeks rather than 50 minutes. All of the assignments we give should further the research goals related to their assignment. So I think it could work very well with nursing because the students progress through their classes in a specified order. It’s easy to select a time when research and “library” skills will be easily integrated with their coursework. We can focus on APA specifically, because that’s what they need and use. I have also been pushing Refworks to these students pretty heavily so it would be awesome to integrate that into the class (maybe nursing can help pay for it one day, ahem).
What troubles me is that plenty of students aren’t going to take a 1 credit class, won’t have the benefit of a class with an instructor who believes in scheduling IL instruction sessions with librarians, or are otherwise not getting the benefit of our instructional services. So when I see them milling about, in need, should I make them an offer they might actually take? When you look at it this way it seems kind of goofy not to. There are limits to how much we can do on an individual basis and perhaps encourgaing students to organize their own classes is part of the solution. Students whose instructors don’t bring them in for a class with us often remark that they wish their class came to the library. Add to this the recent addition of prerequisites and we have a rapidly changing educational environment in terms of basic research proficiency. I remember when I worked at MHCC and they were implementing prerequisites, the counter-argument was always “students have the right to fail!” Egad.
Perhaps in a few years prerequisites really will work as intended and students won’t find themselves adrift in research-heavy classes for which they are totally unprepared. I’m skeptical, as I am about most things, so we’ll just have to see. In the interim I still have to work out how best to help all of the students. I’m generally fairly day-by-day with this but it seems some long-range planning may be in order.
But not tonight. There’s a two hour long Einstein special on History. Sweet.
Yesterday I attended a drug reference workshop hosted by (now mostly defunct) Portals. Slides and handouts are available on NW Central.
In general I find that the presenter is knowledgeable but has crammed way too much information into this 4 hour session. He has to skip many slides as he goes, simply explaining that there’s no time to go over the information presented. This approach to presenting frustrates me… a lot!
The redeeming element for me was the part when he lugged out a literal ton of medical reference books and let us muck about in them, pointing out the various features and drawbacks as we went. This was really useful to me as I haven’t put my hands on most of these resources, but am in a position to consider whether or not to purchase them. Did you know that the PDR is a total work of crap? I had no idea, I am glad to be enlightened now.
Also, the session counted for 4 CE credits toward a Consumer Health Information Specialist certificate with MLA. Y’all know I love to collect shiny degrees and certificates…
I’m rooting around in my library school files today, and I’ve found a few funnies. This one, written by me and Meredith Solomon is clearly a keeper. If you’re still in school and wondering whether that advanced research methods course is for you—I can tell you yes, yes it is.
Old statistics, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant charts
Minutes after they took I
From the null hy-poth-e-sis
But my validity was made strong
By the stats of the almighty
We deviated in this generation
Significantly.
Won’t you help to sing
These degrees of freedom
Cause all I ever have:
Degrees of freedom
Degrees of freedom.Emancipate yourselves from threats to Validity;
None but our critical t can free our minds.
Have no fear for threats to validity,
Cause none of them can plot the line.
How long shall they reject our hypotheses,
While we calculate with our charts and books? Ooh!
Some say it’s just a part of pointlessness:
We’ve got to fill our books.Won’t you help to sing
These degrees of freedom
Cause all I ever have
Degrees of freedom
Degrees of freedom
Degreeeeeeeeeeees of freedom.
Hooray, the PCC Bond passed with about 53% approval (~28,000 votes). As my colleague noted in a comment, bond funds actually can’t be used to hire another librarian, but the hope is that if we build more library facilities it will become apparent to the powers that be (PTB) that library professionals are a necessary element of that facility.
Comments on the folly of depending on the PTB to grasp what’s apparent and obvious are unnecessary, but totally welcome. (:
We’re having a number of debates discussions amongst our librarians these days. Principally the discussions have taken two avenues: 1) access to electronic information via the library website and 2) federated searching via the library website. Basically it’s all about our website and how we envision it being used.
Some librarians advocate for the most simplified process possible. Students don’t need to know that articles come from databases and that peer review is an editorial process. Proponents of this argument suggest that we add links to the homepage that will take the user to the expected content with as few decisions (clicks) as possible along the way. Want a peer reviewed article? Follow the peer reviewed article link, in which the requisite checkboxes will have already been checked on your behalf.
A good bit of support for the first viewpoint (shortcutting) says that we see and interact with so few students in the library (distance learning, y0), via email, or on the telephone that we have to assume a large percentage of the unseen are not finding what they are looking for. And if they’re finding it, they’re likely doing so with more frustration than necessary. For this reason it has also been suggested that we invest in some kind of federated searching tool.
For me, personally, I have a difficult time wearing the librarian hat and the design hat at the same time. I’ve been accused of striving for the ideal (and perhaps missing the reality) in these discussions—and I’m generally okeh with that.
My librarian objection is that is our job to teach these skills and I fear our students will go out into a world full of libraries that might not have a “Peer Reviewed Articles” link. If we’ve taught them to think categorically about research they will know that they learned that articles are found in databases and try to start there. I don’t want to find that we’ve handicapped our students by “dumbing things down.” True, not all of our students (by far) have any plan for further formal education. I still expect them to become competant consumers and producers of information. This also doesn’t mean that I don’t grok the other argument, I’ve just chosen to hope for the best, I guess.
If our students don’t have these skills let’s work harder to get the education to them, not make it easier to check-out on the process. Distance learning students need librarians and IL instruction—hell, everyone needs this stuff if you ask me—and I’m just going to have to stalk those students who are roaming the campus but never coming in the library. Don’t want to learn controlled vocabulary in the library? Fine, I’ll bring it to you in the cafeteria, the gym, and this here screencast tutorial.
My design stance on this is that providing all of these links is just adding clutter to the homepage. Good design needs room to breathe and all of that jazz. It’s a pretty short argument, but an important one. We just spent the better part of year a completely scrapping our woefully inadequate website and building a new one. The last thing I want is to see it overrun with rampant linking. That’s what all that beautiful nav is about.
A colleague’s Frostian reflection today was that she wished our students didn’t have to choose between two roads (on our website) in order to search for information. I think this is an interesting notion. Where she sees too many roads, I think I see too few. I see the need to simplify access for some students but not at the expense of options and precision.
How do you navigate these discussions in your library? Where is the happy medium? Do we need to go to the completely customizable portal model? Click here if you want your website eerily simplified, click here if you’d like frustration with a side of controlled vocabulary…
Like most people I am overwhelmed and overjoyed at the results of the presidential election. I feel like I am unable to heave that deep sigh of relief just yet. I will say I was surprised at the extent of my emotional response to Obama as the new president-elect. I could fully remember sitting in Ms. Russo’s 4th grade class, learning about politics and saying things like “one day there’s gonna be a black president” but not actually believing that in my heart. No part of me as a child, growing up in Oakland, really thought this day would come. It is amazing.
Amazing as it is that change may actually be coming, some things are still the same. Proposition 8 passed. There will definitely be a court battle to follow, but I am disheartened that Californians (and also Floridians and Arizonans) are still taking it upon themselves to dictate who can partake in the legal marriage system.
Prop K also failed and while I certainly didn’t expect it to pass I am really pleased beyond measure that it even made it to the light of day. I have no qualms about letting you know that I am pro legalizing sex work. Prop K would have made it possible for sex workers in San Francisco to seek health care and tell the truth. Not having to lie about potential STI exposure would be a huge move for public health concerns. I hope that this iniative is put forth again.
We have our own bond measure on the local ballot this year and it’s looking like it’s really going to come down to each and every last individual ballot counted. So far we’re down 186 votes with still more votes being counted. The bond is critical to the continued success of the library as part of the monies would go toward building an actual library (and hiring additional library professionals) at the Southeast Center (currently a center, not a campus).
There were some other critical gains and losses by my evaluation but I don’t see a need to get into the minutiae. We won some, we lost some, we’re still going strong.
There’s something especially slippery about the idea of obvious. For example, it seems really obvious to me that the little red card on top of the catalog terminals explains that you can’t get to the Internet-at-large on those computers. Judging by the number of times each day that I explain that you can’t do that on those computers, it is not obvious. Each of us can cite instance after instance in which we’ve explained the obvious to our users and clients.
What is it about this idea of obvious that is so appealing and yet so unattainable in general?
Clearly whomever chose our signage thought it was obvious at the time. Even I thought the signage was fairly straightforward until very recently. One day I was trying to see our library through someone else’s eyes and I realized that our signage is mostly gray. The walls in the library are gray. There are gray cement supports running throughout the library. Perhaps our gray on gray on gray scheme is not especially obvious. It’s more like camouflage in fact. We do have an especially snazzy bright red floor, but alas our signage is not on the floor. (Although a colleague recently suggested we mark out on the floor routes to the obvious locations in the library—printers. copiers, reference, etc.—in the fashion of hospitals [and prisons]. I love this idea!)
It used to be that when I would design a handout or class exercise or whatever I would try to expose the students to detail—not the obvious stuff that anyone could notice. Now I do just the opposite. I take everything my training has taught me is obvious (sure, it’s obvious to most librarians) and strive to call attention to it in a way that is easy to understand and makes sense to the students in the context of their assignments.
In a larger sense I wonder if there is anything that is truly apparent or obvious—or is everything bound to be subjective forever?
It’s days like today that make me wish I had started one of those snarky anonymous blogs. Then I could talk a lot of smack about some folks I witnessed or experienced today in the library. This is not the home of snarky anonymity—so I’ll just make a few pithy statements and leave the rest to your imagination.
shin·y (shī'nē)
adj.
shin·i·er, shin·i·est