Deep Thinking

Usually I rush back from ALA to my school, but this year I stayed for extra legislative meetings and was able to attend the joint youth reception sponsored by YALSA, ALSC and AASL. How exciting to attend a meeting with positive, excited people who have one important factor in common - our youth! We witnessed the hotel staff having to tear down a wall to expand our space for the many extra guests. I decided to mingle with other organization members rather than simply stay with the friends I already know from AASL. I met so many people who are passionate about providing visionary service to the youth of our nation. Many of the YALSA members were inspiring with their focus on using 2.0 technologies and gaming to provide an atmosphere of fun, inquiry, and collaborative exploration. Now is the time to be proud to serve the youth of our nation.

I’m sitting in the Legislation Assembly meeting with many members of the Committee on Legislation listening to our various committee and divisional reports. YALSA has many exciting legislative handouts available on their web site. Many of these could be utilized by other divisions such as AASL.

There are a couple resolutions for COL to consider: Orphan Works and Immigrant Rights. We’ll have to wait and see what they do.

We discussed Grassroots Advocacy. Too many respondents to the survey didn’t really understand what makes a network. Some people devalued their informal networks when we truly view them as the heart of getting information out to others.

Annual Conference exciting opportunities include the Library Day on the Hill Tuesday, June 26th when busses will be available to take librarians to Capitol Hill to meet legislators. There will be showcases in the Rayburn building to show legislators model school libraries, public libraries, etc.

The Washington Office staff and the Committee on Legislation should be commended for their increasing efforts in support of school libraries. We have come far and will continue this path together.

Passion is the big word at the ALA Midwinter meeting. I wish you could hear how often a speaker has used the term, a committee member has admitted to their passion for an issue, and even I have waxed poetic on my passions. Whoever said librarians were dull?! I did get carried away today and actually pounded the table at one point because I felt so strongly (read passionately) about an issue.

Now, those who are passionate have begun getting up and doing things. Where will you be? Are you a dullard, or are you on fire for your profession?

Tum Susman, Ropes & Gray, Washington, DC presentation

1. Libraries are increasingly called on to deliver an array of services. Intermediary for e-gov. Emergency service provider of choice preparation, response and recovery.

Government sends citizens to the Libraries to get access to their forms (FEMA, etc.) After Hurricane, many citizens went to public libraries to reconnect with family members.

2. Governments at all levels and the public look to libraries to perform these services (e-gov and emergency).
Remarkably unresponsive government on doing these.

He read great study from FL (? Chuck McClure) and became an expert overnight.

3. ON plane to Atlanta last month, ALA and OITP with Florida insitutions put together round-table discussion on e-gov and emergency services. After the hurricane, libraries remained standing because they were case hardened to hold the weight of books.

What should we do?
Government is still going to be spending money despite zero sum budgets and woe is me scenarios. He believes that Libraries are going to be in a resource constrained environment.

Tech brief from ALA OITP.
R. David Lanes, Joane Silverstein, Scott Nicholson from the Information Institute of Syracuse/ Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies presented powerpoint on Patricipatory Networks: The Library as Conversation. Here is information from the slides. The complete text of the technology brief is available at http://iis.syr.edu/projects/PNOpen.

Found knowledge is created through conversation.
…Books, videos, web pages, etc. are simply artifacts of knowledge creations.
Libraries are in the knowledge business, therefore the conversation business.
Libraries online and off need to facilitate conversation.

(Notes: in K-12 environment they talk about Metacognition, scaffolding, how knowledge is created through conversation)

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0
* Social networks
* Wisdom of crowds
* Loosely coupled API’s
* Mashups
* Permanent betas
* software gets better the more people use it
* Folksonomies

Let’s start a question so our users don’t feel stupid. Build better libraries through conversation.
Attach to larger frame so we have a participatory library including:
Community Repository
Community Involvement
Traditional Reference
Virtual Reference
Institutional reposittory
Digital collections

(Users should be able to add their own information, blogs, etc. by uploading it. Users should not only find out if we have something, but also if there is a discussion group about it)

Enhanced Catalog
Federated Search
Recommender searh
External Feeds and sites
Databases
Bibilographic Catalogs
Recommendations
Use data

Build better mechanisms for our libraries so we can be participatory libraries.

Recommendations - General
Libraries must be active participants in participatory networking.
This must be done at the core of the library, not on the periphery.
Anything less simply adds stress and stretches scarce resources even further.

Recommendations - Specific
1. Expand understanding of participatory networks and participatory librarianship.
2. Create a “Participatory Library Test Bed”
a. Provide shared services to libraries
b. provide librarians needed skills
c. Standing Research Agenda in Participatory Librarianship
http://iis.syr.edu/Projects/PNOpen

Scott Nicholsen will be around for further questions. This speaker David Lankes needs to run for a plane.

I actually asked a question because school libraries are filtered out and blocked from these resources, even those that are professionally based. David admitted this is true, but then told a story of how Joyce Valenza’s students are doing advanced projects. This isn’t enough of a recognition of this problem. Joyce does not have the typical setup across this country and we need to all be concerned about others.

Privacy issues arose through audience questions.

I’m sitting at the ALA Midwinter Meetings listening to the ALA Washington Office briefings. You can go to their website and download all their handouts. I urge you to start considering putting these in your state association newsletters whenever they are appropriate. The Washington Office has a new link to make it easier to access everything.

110th COngress updates. (Please excuse errors in names. I’ll try to correct later today. These are quick notes with mistakes. )
House set a record for passing legislation in 44 hours, not 100. Nancy Pelosi’s impact. Predictions are for very busy first of the year due to the relationship building between majority and minority leaders. Key committees Education Miller from CAlifornia and Buck McKeon will work together. David Obey from Wisconsin for appropriations. Ohio representative who was a huge fan of libraries will no longer be the ranking member of his committee.

Senate split of 51-49 is vital. Tim Johnson doing much better but will still be out for a couple more months. Realization on both sides that they need to work together and not horribly jab each other. 21 republicans will have to hold their seats next time so 2008 could be significant. How they work together will be key? There is no 100 hours of Senate. That would be two of one senator’s long speeches alone.
Robust reform looking Wednesday like it would fall apart, but they brokered a deal Thursday morning and it passed 96-2. Shows that they are reaching out and working in a bipartisan way. Good sign since some legislation is 3 years past deadlines for re-authorizations (Headstart, Higher Ed acts, college areas, work programs)

Health Committee has 3 presidential aspirants on the same committee - Clinton, Obama, Dodd. All the activity from presidential race so early is good because there will be hearings and much work wrapped up by October.

Bad news: appropriations werent finished last year. (Personally I think the Republicans suffered in the elections from this and now are making all of us suffer). For a handful of programs that would have had an increase, this is bad because numbers went back to 2006 numbers. LSTA is impacted because they would have had a rare increase in 2007 if the REpublican led Congress had actually done their job and passed their financial budget (personal rant on accountability and getting the job done!) $435 billion budget packet will be put to bed. Some money earmarked $6billion may shift back to some other programs. Health, housing benefits will take this up. School aid, Title 1. Not much left.

Budgets are a reality Democrats face now. Pell Grant, NCLB significant increases just won’t happen because their is no money. Pay as you go means there is no money and zero sum budgets are in place. (Personally the deficit was out of control due to tax cuts for the rich so education and other areas suffered. Go Blue Dogs and get it back to the surplus before.)

NCLB re-authorization is up this year. If not done this year, due to presidential elections it probably won’t be acted upon. Teacher quality efforts have taken up all funds and demanded state initiatives. NCLB changes will try to put in the requirement for all schools to have HIGHLY QUALIFIED LIBRARIANS. Lots of people simply don’t like NCLB. Quite a time table on NCLB.
Headstart - libraries want to help and be listed in this for our resources.

What does this mean for ALA? Opportunitites to reach out to new faces and develop new allies. Take advantage of new members and look at realities of old friends moving on. Zero sum gain for budget means no offense and higher defense. Competition for resources. Dollars for LSTA and school libraries are being well-spent. That message needs to go out. Potential in next 8-9 months for much legislative action. We must all work together to get bills passed and to include libraries.

Question from audience:
6-7 years ago had surplus. Now huge deficit. What’s impact of war? Expect huge spending on war. Money doesn’t grow on trees. It all comes from somewhere. All funding impacted (social security, etc.) Not a pretty picture. Looking ahead 15-20 year scenario the federal budget is BLEAK and a challenge. Not going to get easier. War isn’t helping make anything easier.

Molly Fogarty from COL says now that she is totally depressed about the budget for the next 15-20 years, we will hear from other experts. (Molly is great and I love her fun personality.)

Update from my fellow Rabble Rowser in Minnesota. We have a potentially library savvy new friend Tim Walz. Our eyes are on him.

You ARE an advocate whether you want to be one or not. You can be a positive advocate for school libraries or a negative advocate. If you do nothing to let others know what it is you are doing and why it is vital to student achievement, then you have NOT had a positive role in advocacy. Does being an advocate mean you have to “know all” about every aspect of your profession? No! Does it mean tons of workshops? No. Does it mean you have to go somewhere to learn how? No. You can learn how to be an advocate through the ALA website and through the Legislative Advocacy center. Does this mean the only form of advocacy is political? No! When you are working with a student teacher and remind her of your important role in collaboration and how the SLMP is essential to her students, you are advocating. When you encourage parents, teachers, and administration to speak for you, you are advocating by creating new advocates. Those are even more effective because it is viewed as less self-serving. You are not advocating for the sake of your position. You are advocating for your students because you have statistics, research, and anecdotes to show that a SLMS is essential to student achievement. GO forth. Advocate. Speak up. I wish I could give you all a sticker that said, “I am an Advocate.” You can then decide what message you are sending.

Don’t you love being an elementary school librarian? or an elementary teacher? or the principal?
Everywhere you go, children cry out your name, rush to hug you, drag their parents to meet you, and are genuinely happy to see you.
In fact, when my teens were much younger, they demanded we stop dining out in the same community where I work so that they could have uninterrupted meals without children staring at them and waving.
The ways my hubby’s students greet him are extremely different. When he was coaching, he’d have screaming girls run up saying, “Coach! Coach!” While he teaches at the alternative school, his students are serious, skirt around, and whisper greetings trying to draw as little attention as possible. When his students graduate, they revert to elementary status and their enthusiasm returns.
There’s just something about walking into a classroom and a riot of voices call out greetings. When I walked in the art room the other day, I whispered to my visitor, “Don’t they just love the library?”
While students were dismissing this week I asked my principal, “Do we have a disproportionate number of students who are reading their books in line for the busses and while they are riding the bus home?” Reading attitudes. Reading is fun. Learning in the library is exciting. Your librarian cares about your whole person. The messages seem to get through.

Today was a traumatic day. As I parked my car in the driveway, my German Shepherd Marshall Teddy Bear (T) Rex and my little Lucy mix came running to the gate to greet me. They were barking happily and running to the backdoor for the boys to let them in when suddenly my neighbor’s pit bull went through the fence, grabbed my Shepherd under the throat, threw him to the ground and bit his head with that pit bull deathgrip. I didn’t know what was happening until I looked up and the neighbor on the other side was screaming, “That dog is going to kill that dog.” The owner had let the pit bull off the chain to play and then stepped into his garage for a moment. The owner came running, screaming. I came running and saw my dog on the ground being mauled. The owner was able to get the pit bull to let go and my dogs ran for safety to my van. The owner was eventually able to convince his dog to go back under the fence and connected him to the chain. When we examined Marshall, he had a deep cut on top of his head exposing his skull, plus puncture wounds along his face that dripped blood into the nasal cavities and resulted in bleeding from mouth, saliva, and the nose. I took off for the vet. Hubby answers his cell phone to a desperate call and wants me to call police. At that point I’m nearly in shock and can only deal with my poor puppy!

Hubby shows up at the vet’s, takes one look, and calls the police to file a report. The owner of that pit bull had a different pit bull 4 years ago that came through the fence and attacked one of my 8th graders (at that time) while he was mowing. The neighbor who witnessed this today was hysterical also and wants the pit bulls removed from next door! So do I!
The vet has kept Marshall T-Rex overnight to stitch and staple him under sedation, put the IV in to watch for shock, and watch the facial injuries to be sure they don’t swell up with trapped air. Unfortunately I leave for Seattle tomorrow before my poor 9.5 year old puppy comes home. Little Lucy and I are still traumatized. I have on three layers of pajamas & robes, a heated throw and a blanket. I don’t understand pit bulls and the owners that dare put a pit bull on a chain. My hubby posted about this on the Democratic Underground and received lots of flack from people who object to our dissin’ an entire breed based upon this one neighbor. I’m not buying what they’re selling.

If you were a classroom teacher and sent a group of students to the school library for only 5 minutes, what would you expect them to do? Probably choose a book, right? A classroom teacher sent half her class by themselves right after lunch to quickly* grab a book . I was not in the room because I was escorting a visitor to our new art mini-lab. Unbeknownst to me, the teacher had also instructed them to stay OFF the computers. What were they doing?

Browsing the OPAC
Taking AR tests
Designing pictures with Kidspiration
Looking up ideas on Grolier Online
Printing pictures
Chatting with friends

The teacher was upset even though the students checked out before leaving. The students were quite upset because the majority of them said they weren’t “on” the computer, they were simply using the computer to find information. It’s a difficult position to be in as the “keeper of the room”. To compound matters, the students didn’t leave immediately when the teacher sent a runner down to tell everyone who had touched the computer to return to the room immediately. This was the situation as I returned to the library.

Eighteen years ago as a LIS student, one of the very first student guidelines for my students was to know what they were seeking and doing in the library. I don’t think this has changed. We still want to teach them to be productive. We encourage all students to be on task. Yet we ask them to be life-long learners and information users. Should we differentiate more “using the computer” as separate from “choosing a book?”

* Quickly is a separate issue since they had already come with their reading teachers in the morning. Four out of 5 reading classes at that grade had already come to browse, chat about their books, and make selections. Were the students totally honest with the teacher when they insisted they “needed” to come to the library? Is their need to satisfy their “incidental curiosity” as reasonable as their need to have a good book to read?