"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."
-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.
 |
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."
No comments:
Post a Comment