Connecting Librarian

With Library Week next week and a few other things happening, I have been thinking about my profession, what led me to come to this place and how what I do fits with who I am.

I am a librarian.  I recommend you check out Librarian Idol’s recent post The Great I AM….. Andrew manages to express succintly how I feel about that. (thanks Andrew)

I decided that I wanted to be  librarian in Grade 6.  We had a great librarian at my school, who made the library fun and got me interested in more than reading, which I was already more than interested in.

Going through high school I think my teachers thought it unusual for anyone to be so dedicated to knowing what they wanted to do. They encouraged me to consider other options, one assessment required me to investigate another – my choice?  Marine Biologist.  How further apart can you get.

I never doubted that a librarian was what I was going to be. I was accepted into the course of my choice on first offers and was happy doing it.  All confirmed what I had decided when I was 11.  I was happiest with reference related subjects and that has held up for the 23 years since I graduated.

I am a born reference librarian.  Anyone asks a question and I have to answer it, even if its a retrospective one. If there is a problem that needs to be solved that interests me, I need to find a solution. As a librarian, there have been a lot of such problems.   

If you’re on Facebook, I recommend you try out their What kind of librarian are you application.  Of course it came out with me being a reference librarian. I seem to know myself reasonably well by now.

What it said about me was: ” Reference Librarian” – You are a human search engine who always wins Trivial Pursuit. Logical, direct and clever, you’ll spend days tracking down bits of information, even though the patron who requested it has long since moved on. If you can stop beginning all of your sentences with “Well, actually” or “I’ve always found that…”, your co-workers will start talking to you again. Primary sources and well-structured databases make you quiver with excitement, and you probably stand the best chance of surviving Armageddon due to the breadth of knowledge tucked away among your little gray cells.“  For those of you who know me – stop laughing!

Well its not entirely true, I’ve moved on from pure information seeking for patron’s sakes (but still an entirely consuming personal passion, lol), onto the joy that the internet and bringing it to and using it for the benefit of our users.

Stepping back in time once again. (cue up music and shimmering screen as we go back – picture is in colour though, I’m not THAT old).  In year 10 I did my work experience at a public library and didn’t think much of it. Not that it put me off being a librarian – I knew it could be better. However, it had me thinking that when I qualified, that I would work in a school or special library, because it would give me the variety I wanted. As such, I did my course placements in a school library and a special library.  I enjoyed both those experiences and it seemed to confirm my chosen direction.

However, it was not to be.  Whatever you believe in, God, fate, coincidence and my own fickle mind took me to where I never expected to go.  I started applying for jobs towards the end of my final semester at Uni. One such job, was in a public library. I ignored it the first week I saw it, but when I saw it again the following week, for reasons unknown even to me after all this time,  I applied.  Was delighted to get an interview and awestruck when I got the job. Even moreso when reviewing my application letter later and saw the amount of typing errors still in the letter, even after the liberal use of correction fluid. (PCs weren’t around at that point – it was the good old portable typewriter).

When I first started work, there was an Apple IIc and an Apple IIe computer available for staff use only.  I had never seen anything other than mainframes and dumb terminals, so they were totally new to me.  But being a curious person (good librarian trait) and not scared to play (another good trait), I started learning and within 6 months, was the person everyone came to for help with them.

How things have changed since that day nearly 24 years ago.

So on reflection, what about me personally, has helped make me a good librarian. I’ve mentioned some of those things already, but here they are in list form:

• curiousity
• desire to learn
• problem-solver
• information seeker
• question answerer
• like to make people happy (sometimes not such a good thing)
• not afraid of new things
• like to experiment
• like to share what I learn
• persistent and determined

And many more.  They have all helped me to do a good job over the years and have helped me to be an ever improving librarian who loves what she does.

So what’s your story?  What about you makes you a good librarian? Although Library Week is usually about promoting libraries to our communities, lets celebrate Library Week for ourselves as well by reaffirming our librarian-ness and being proud to say I am a librarian.

Indigenous Literacy – a national crisis – Anita Heiss -UQ and Flinders

Gap beween indigenous literacy and non-indigenous. By the age of 15, 1/3 of indigenous students dont have the skills to manage in the adult world. In remote areas, these figures are even higher. Indigenous students have much higher adsence rates, lower numeracy skills and with health related to school attendance and literacy skills, this too is poor.

Indigenous Literacy Project and Day were established to deal with these issues. Its a partnership between the APA, ABA and the Fred Hollowes Foundation, to provide books to indigenous communities. The books are chosen by the communities and foundation staff to enhance their pool of literacy resources. Started 4 years ago by Suzie Wilkins. Now operates across the nation, supported by the book industry, authors and authors.

The Project is making a difference, but there is still a lot of work to do. The Foundaition uses a 3 way approach to building literacy and promote cultural, media and English literacy. Projects include literacy resources, writing and publishing projects, a traditional song project, an after-hours music project, community learning centre (inter-agency project which includes a library), aural and visual health, nutrition programs and child/maternal health programs.

How can we help: make libraries and collections relevant and enticing to indigenous people, replenish stocks of indigenous titles and ahve indigenous authored titles, have authors and storytellers in your library, contact publishers of indigenous books and offer your space for launches, author visits etc.

Check indigenous publishers websites: Magabala Books, IAD Press, Aboriginal Studies Press, Keeaira Press and Black Ink Pre ss.

Get familiar with indigenous literature through Black Words (A&TSI writers and story tellers) – a subset of OzLit. The website now lists 1900 authors and storytellers.
You can find biographical information, relevant arts, cultural and literary groups, reviews, critical articles and exerpts from scholarly works. It also includes a calendar of events which traces historical events from 1788. Can be searched by genre, author, heritage and topics.

Question: does anyone from the Foundation visit the parents in remote communities. Anita believed that there is a process of consultation with people on the ground. Nothing is being done on the ground which is not the wishes of the local people.

Question: the concern of loss of language. Not the best person for Anita to comment on – she doesnt have any answer for that.

Question: work being done at the Bachelor Institute – works are being created in their native languages, then translating it into language, which are then being published and will be made available at the Alice Springs public library, as well as their own communities. Anita was happy to hear about this. Indigenous people want to read about things relevant to them, familiar to them.

Its my 3rd blogaversary and I’ve been trying to think about what to post about to celebrate and decided its a good time to review the past 12 months of professional activity.  So here’s what I consider are my major achievements professionally, both inside and outside of work.  This is more for me I guess, to remind myself what I have been doing that has kept me so busy and to encourage me in the year ahead.  I don’t know if you will get anything out of it, but I hope you do.  I won’t presume however, to say what it will be.

This is my 176th post, so things were a bit quieter in the past year, mainly because other things were happening to occupy my time and engage my attention.  Comments are up to 270 for the three years and I thank all my commenters for leaving them. They are encouraging and sometimes thought-provoking and knowing how busy we all are, I appreciate the time you took.

So in the last year, I have given 6 presentations, ranging from 10 minutes to 6 hours in length (the 6 hours was a day long masterclass), of which 2 presentations were at conferences (only 1 of which I attended the whole time), I have written a chapter for a book which has now been published, have had a journal article and 2 other conference papers accepted, which will be published and presented in the forthcoming year.

I attended the VALA conference and Michael Stephen’s Hyperlinked Library seminars, listened to countless podcasts, read countless journal articles and even more blog posts.  Its amazing my head hasn’t exploded from all the information I have taken in and yet it is still only a drop in the ocean of what’s out there, even in my own profession.

In the past year I have written 52 blog posts for this blog, as well as blogging at Invisible Ink (nowhere near as prolifically) and at 2 of my library’s 3 blogs, one of them at least weekly.  So I get plenty of time to write and my confidence in presenting has improved dramatically.

At work I have helped 60 staff to being the Learning 2.0 program, I have created Google Maps for all our branches and mobile library stops, I have helped other library staff create and launch 2 new blogs, built up the team on our existing blog and written our library policy to support these endeavours.  I have done screencasts on using our catalogues, introduced a web poll, embedded a search box and direct account login to all our library webpages, all whilst doing minor tweaks and regular updates on our badly needing an update website (which will now happen in this coming year).

So its been an awesome and life changing year.  If you had told me, even a year ago that I would feel comfortable presenting, I would have laughed at you.  What a difference a year makes.  (not that presenting will ever be easy, lol)  I feel like I have developed as more of a professional librarian, rather than just a librarian doing a particular job.  I am proud of that distinction, just as I am proud to be a librarian and proud of the job I have done for my library.

The coming year brings two conference presentations, the publication of my journal article and I am part of the organising committee for the VALA 2010 conference.  And that just the things I know of.  Its a good time to be a librarian and I’m going to make the most of every opportunity that comes my way – I’m having too much fun to be doing anything else!

I have learnt a lot about writing in the nearly 3 years that I have been blogging, much of which I haven’t realised until I started writing for other avenues.

I am in the process of finishing up one conference paper, reviewing a journal article on the basis of peer review and researching for another conference paper. Both conference papers have to be submitted for publication in the proceedings, so a full paper is required.

Lesson number 1 – writing is not as easy as it may seem. Or rather, good writing isn’t. I have come to the conclusion that I need to be inspired, or at least greatly motivated to be able to write half-way decently. Which probably explains why my blogging tends to be sporadic, rather than regular posts, as I am not always motivated to write.

Lesson number 2 – I can write when the pressure is on, but generally its not very good. Point in case, the paper I am polishing now I had trouble starting, but I got it down. When I went back to review it, I was amazed to see how bad it was – of course, I went back to in a time of motivation, so I was seeing it through more creative and critical eyes.

Lesson number 3 – good writing will take you over. When I feel like writing, I will write everywhere. So not only am I working on those three things, but I’m blogging here and I will be going off to post on some other blogs as well, with items that have been sitting in my to-do pile for a while.

© 2008 Digital Inspiration

Lesson number 4 – I can be as temperamental as any artist. Writer’s block seems to happen for me on a regular basis and in those times (with arm across forehead and dramatic flair) I just can’t work!

Lesson number 5 – Distractions are a problem only if my writing motivation is lacking. If I’m having trouble writing, then anything will distract me, but television and a book – any book, are key distractors. When I’m motivated, nothing will distract me, in fact it will be hard to keep me away from the computer.

Lesson number 6 – I create best on computer. I learnt to touch type in high school, one of the best skills I ever learned. Now, all those decades later and still with a healthy typing speed, I find I write better with the keyboard than with pen and paper. My fingers type well with the thoughts flowing through my head and they don’t get as tired as they do if I am writing the same amount with pen and paper.

Lesson number 7 – I review better on paper. Again back to the paper I am polishing. It was created on computer, but when I went back to re-read it, I was better able to do so on paper. Then out came the red pen and I went to town on it. Don’t know why that is, but that’s the way it is.

Lesson number 8 – I have to believe that what I am writing will be good. I can put out some good content, not from the very word go obviously, but I can get down what I want to say in a way that people call relate to. Not that I am anywhere in the same league as great authors, in either the wider publishing world or even the library publishing sphere, but unless I believe that I can communicate in a way that people will be engaged by, then its not going to happen at all.

Lesson 9 – I am enjoying writing more than I thought I would. Despite the anxiety caused by writer’s block and fast approaching deadlines, when the mood takes me I really enjoy putting my hands to the keyboard and creating content. Not that I think I would ever make a career out of it, but rather it gives me the ability to express my passion for what I am doing and to share that with an audience who hopefully relates to it.

Lesson number 10 – there will be many more lessons as I continue to learn about writing. I am very fortunate to have a range of opportunities to hone my craft. As I continue to look for and take up these opportunities and learn from my experiences and those of others, my writing will continue.

So these are my learnt on the fly lessons. Would love to hear of your writing experiences and other lessons you have learnt. By doing so, you help me with lesson 10! Thanks!

Have a big week coming up – attending and giving a short showcase at VALA in Melbourne. So before I start blogging that (hopefully live), I thought give my readers some interesting things to read.

Pew/Internet regularly produces reports related to online use. One of the latest was conducted with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois on Information searches that solve problems: how people use the internet, libraries and government agencies when they need help.  Interesting results include high use of public libraries by Generation Y’ers for the scenarios surveyed, digital divide is still an issue and the expected result of the internet as a first stop.  Well worth a look at.

University College London has produced another in their series of Ciber briefing  papers, this one on the Information behaviour of the researcher of the future.   The study was commissioned by the British Library and JISC to “identify how the specialist researchers of the future, currently in their school or pre-school years, are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years’ time.”  Very eye opening with some interesting results.

The Horizon Report 2008 from the New Media Consortium is out.  It aims to “identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning or creative expression within learning-focused organizations’.  This is their 5th annual report.  Considering the link between libraries of any type and our learning organisations, this is a key document to be watching.  The key emerging technologies highlighted in this report include grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence and social operating systems.   You can get the gist of the report through the Executive Summary.  Definitely food for thought for our libraries.

Enjoy!

Wow, yesterday was exhausting, and today was as interesting, if not as new.

Diana Oblinger from EDUCAUSE spoke on the trends that teens are showing us now, which will ultimately become societal changes (as they always do).

Today’s learners are connected, both individually and as groups, via both technology and personally. They are action- oriented, multi-tasking (over-committed?), always on the move. They don’t want to sit and listen, if forced to they will stop listening. They are still naive in many respects, often don’t think about their online behaviour and not necessarily IT savvy.

It is not the era of digital natives, research shows that as of 2003, the digital natives were the under 6’s (that means my kids!).

Culture becoming:
Do it yourself – eg. Wikipedia. Young learner’s are self reliant, go for online banking, learning, travel, health etc. Finding info – #1 choice is internet, only 2% libraries. 53% find search engines as trustworthy as librarians (scary!). Perfect playlist – MP3 players, make personalised song lists. Media creators – blogs, webpages and more – 57%, 33% share their content, 19% remix content, 17% posted video and 25% access video/TV online. Their personal life remote control (mobiles) are constantly with them, have become personal digital repositories (images, sound, etc) and are multifunctional.

Participate – Blogs, 8% blog, 39% read them, 50/50 male female split. 55% blog under a pseudonyn. People who read and write blogs tend to be influencers in our society. Ratings – on teachers, venues and more. Opinions – use online polls to vote on issues. Other ways to participate, many of which adults are already using:
photos, sharing content, social networking, remixed content.

Socialize – communication is #1 use for IT for kids. 23% connect across the country, 17% across the world. 44% connect with 20+ kids. Many connect through online games. Social networks – alternative channel for communication. Penn State has created their own version, PennSter. 55% use social networking, 91% for contact with friends, 82% for contact with people they don’t see often. Connecting in virtual worlds, conveys a sense of presence, combines connection and social media and is useful for role playing.

Technology rate of change is expontential, but our young people have never known anything different. Any place is now a learning place, both physically and virtually.

Suggestions: 1. Broaden our definition of learning
2. Consider the options
3. Reassess and unlearn

The goal is an organisation that is constantly making the future, not defending its past.