Week 4: Communities

(I just realized that my post titles are technically a week behind.  This is our 5th week of class, but our 4th week of blog responses.  So I'm keeping it the way it is.  Just so you know that I'm aware.)

Okay, this week was all about communities and how we can better include our communities in the library and make them a part of our library.  What I thought was interesting was that the focus wasn't on getting the community to come to the library, but the librarian needs to be a vital part of the community.  They need to be in the field, participating in the events that the community believes to be important.  I think this is fantastic advice.  The quote at the beginning of the thread is as follows, "One of the things I learned in library school is that when people have an information need, they'll always ask people they know before they ask a librarian.  The trick is making sure that librarians are some of the people they know." -Jessamyn West.

So by becoming involved in the community, you are essentially doing just that, letting the community get to know you, so you will be the one they come to when they have questions.

Before coming to New York, I had volunteered at a local public library.  As I was reading the thread, I kept thinking of this library, and how this library seemed to have a lot of concepts down when it comes to the community.  This library, I feel, was community centered.  They knew their community and the needs of the community.  There were a lot of stay at home moms who had young children (this was Utah, after all) and one of their main focuses was on story-time.  I was lucky enough to volunteer during their story time hours, and it was hugely successful.  They always had a huge turn-out, and one librarian that I talked to told me that she had many parents come up to her and thank her for the program, saying that they used story time as thir child's preschool. 

I also worked in the back of the library in the area of the story time faculty, and overheard many of their conversations when it came to planning and implementing the program.  They had story times for different age groups, but they were constantly discussing what the different age groups needed, and if it was even needed to have an older aged story time.  They were assessing and evaluating what they were doing so they could fit the community's needs.

Week 3: Facilitation

I first want to say that I got a job at the Fayetteville Free Library, and had my first day yesterday.  I'm super excited to get to finally work in a library (I've only had a small amount of volunteer experience in one, other than that, my knowledge about libraries consists of where the Young Adult section of the library is).  And surprisingly enough, just from my one day of working there, I can already relate it to the thread on Facilitation. Yay for real world experience!

When I was first offered a job at the library, I was talking with the executive director, and she was telling me about monthly one-on-one meetings they had at the library with her and each of the staff.  This is time to talk about ideas the staff has in a SAFE ENVIRONMENT (anyone catching on to where I'm going with this?).  They also have meetings that include all of the staff that anyone can attend and everyone is expected to participate.  She talked about how many of their best ideas came from the part-time staff going to graduate school, because they are new to the field, bringing with them new ideas.  I haven't had the opportunity to go to one of these meetings yet, as I just started, but from what I've gathered, this library knows how to create a safe environment among the staff and librarians.  This helps the library move forward towards new librarianship, and also helps the staff feel like they are an essential part of the library.  And I'd like to take a guess that they know how to apply that to members of the library as well. 

The other part of the thread that really stuck out to me was the section on knowledge.  I was an elementary school teacher before coming to Syracuse, and I've had my fair share of classes on literacy and instruction.  But it was been really interesting to view literacy from a librarian perspective.  I actually really loved what it said about literacy in the book.  "If we look at literacy as empowerment, literally to gain power, then we have a different take on literacy altogether." 

Woah!  I loved that.  Literacy is about accessing and using information.  Facilitation is about empowering the community so they can be successful.   It makes so much sense, and it makes me more excited about the prospect of becoming a librarian.

Week 2: Knowledge

"Knowledge is uniquely human."
-David Lankes

I loved this quote from the videos this week.  Previously, I haven't given much consideration to what knowledge really is.  When I thought of knowledge, I thought of teachers, and books, and school.  I didn't give thought to the fact that knowledge isn't contained in artifacts, that it's something we create through conversation.

But that fact makes a lot of sense when you think of how knowledge is created.  Of course it isn't contained in an object.  An artifact can't hand out knowledge, but it is what each individual brings to it that makes it significant.

I also really appreciated the idea that was presented of being in the learning business, not the informing business.  Our jobs as future librarians is NOT to simply give the patrons a piece of paper with all of the information they need on it and be done.  We teach people how to find the information they need through... say it with me... CONVERSATION!

The final point I wanted to touch on has to do with this quote in The Atlas of New Librarianship, "If your community needs a workshop, build a workshop, not a collection of books about building workshops." I have to say, that I love this quote, but part of it is hard for me to come to terms with.  You see, I love books, and this picture is basically how I feel about life.

  I believe that you can find almost any information you need from books, and that's where my passion is.  But this quote makes so much sense.  Books can only do so much.  They can only inform people so much, and it's up to the person reading it to turn that information into knowledge and apply it.  But our jobs as librarians, in the learning business, is to facilitate knowledge, not just information.  We want to encourage people, and give them the tools, to create knowledge.  So yes, we can have books all about workshops and show people every last detail of how to build a workshop, but isn't it much more effective to have a workshop that the community is available to use?  It makes so much sense!

So, I'm going to leave you guys with one last quote (what can I say?  I love quotes.) that I think sums up my feelings of what I learned in this chapter: "When you change your thinking from artifacts and items to conversations and knowledge, new possibilities open up."

Week 1: Mission

First of all, I actually enjoyed reading this textbook, which I can’t say has ever happened before. I’m interested in the ideas, so that’s probably a good sign that I made the appropriate decision in going to grad school. 

 That aside, let’s get down to the analysis of what I read, shall we? Before I came to Syracuse University, I would get the same two questions all of the time when I told someone I was going into Library and Information Science. The first: “You need a graduate degree to be a librarian?” and “What is the job market like? Will you even be able to get a job as a librarian?” (Okay, I guess that was technically 3 questions, but the second two can merge as one.) These people had a narrow-minded view of what libraries and librarians are. They pictured old ladies with their hair in a bun and thick glasses with a chain around their neck telling people to be quiet. As I was reading this thread, I wanted to share the idea of new librarianship with all of these people. I loved the part of The Atlas of New Librarianship that read “If you seek to define the world view of librarians by the functions they do, you will run into all sorts of problems” (18). Because it’s true! If you view librarianship solely as sitting in an old building full of old books and uses the dewey decimal system, it’s much more frightening thinking about a future focused on technology than if you view librarianship as facilitating the community and improving society through various means. 

 For my undergraduate degree, I decided to go into elementary education. With that degree you are certified to do one thing: teach. Sure, I could have gotten a little innovative and figured out how to apply my skills in other professions, but I was trained to be a 1st through 6th grade teacher in a public school. I found that teaching wasn’t the career path I wanted to take, and so it was on to grad school. When I found out about this degree, I basically fell in love. And the more I learned about it, the more I loved it. Because it’s not just a one directional career path. There are SO MANY different directions you can take, and it’s so open to interpretation. So when you think about the future of librarianship, it’s not concerning at all. It’s full of possibility. And that’s what makes this career so exciting: the fact that our mission as librarians is to improve society, and there are so many ways of achieving that goal.