School Libraries in a 2.0 World 
| School Libraries in a 2.0 World |
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School Libraries in a 2.0 World By Kathy Lowe, MSLA President and Acting Executive Director  There has been so much talk and press lately about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 that there is a danger that they will soon become clichés. But as I write this, during the first week of the New Year, from the new headquarters of MSLA (my son’s former bedroom) in Lunenburg, I’m wondering how the 2.0 World that we live in will have affected school libraries when all the dust has settled. The only thing that is clear to me at this point is that we will be affected, but whether in a positive or negative way, I have no idea. I see the potential for libraries of all types to play a key role in the 2.0 World, but I can also see the possibility that we might disappear altogether if we don’t pay attention and seize the opportunities that the current information environment presents to us. How will we recognize opportunities for us to be involved and to take the lead in this Brave New World? None of us are psychic – at least none that I know of – but there are lots of signs that could point us in the right direction if we know where to find them and there are colleagues among us who are keeping up with the evolution of information and looking for ways that school libraries and school library teachers can apply, and teach others to use, Web 2.0 tools. Many of these people are sharing their thoughts and expertise in their blogs. There are several that I have been following lately in an attempt to stay abreast of what is happening, and what could happen next, in our field. Here are my recommendations of names to know and blogs to read to raise your awareness and knowledge about Web/Library 2.0 and its implications for school libraries: ➢ School Library Journal Blog http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog ➢ AASL Weblog, http://aaslblog.org ➢ Alice Yucht, Alice in Infoland http://www.aliceinfo.org ➢ Joyce Valenza, NeverEnding Search http://joycevalenza.edublogs.org ➢ Laura Pearle, Killin’ Time Being Lazy http://lazygal.blogspot.com ➢ Christopher Harris, Infomancy http://schoolof.info/infomancy / ➢ Michael Stephens,Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology http://www.tametheweb.com ➢ David Warlick, 2 Cents Worth http://2cents.davidwarlick.com ➢ Diane Chen, Deep Thinking http://deepthinking.blogsome.com ➢ Doug Johnson, Blue Skunk Blog http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs ➢ Meredith Farkas, Information Wants to Be Free http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php ➢ Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch http://kathyschrock.net/blog/index.htm ➢ Justin Ashworth School Libraryland http://ashworth.wordpress.com/ ➢ Jenny Levine The Shifted Librarian http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/ ➢ Will Richardson Weblogg-ed http://weblogg-ed.com / In my President’s message last January, I asked you to consider your role in school literacy initiatives. My concern at that time was with the disconnect between school libraries and reading instruction, but now, in the 2.0 environment, it is the other literacies – those 21st Century Learning Skills – that are my concern. I read more and more about the need for educators to teach students how to use information effectively. As a profession, this is not news to us, but it seems that finally the rest of the educational community is catching on to what we have been saying for years. Just today, David Warlick wrote in his blog, 2 Cents Worth: One thing that has happened to information, that should be impacting what and how we teach, is that information has become the raw material with which people work. We mine it, we work it, fashioning it into an information product that will be valuable to other people, and then express it in some compelling way. It may be a story, a report, a song, or a design. It may be a piece of computer code, or a sales pitch for a new marketing or distribution technique. It may be a new experience that people will enjoy. It may be a new way to grow wheat that is resistant to whatever wheat needs to resist. We still teach too much as if information is the end product. We teach it, you learn it, we test it. Instead, we need to present information as a raw material. You access it, and then you do something with it, that adds value in some way. You construct your own knowledge.Isn’t this what we teach in our library classrooms? I hope so! Unfortunately, just as with the disconnect between school libraries and literacy programs, I fear that, in the public’s perception, there is an even greater disconnect between libraries and the application of Web 2.0 tools. So what do we do? We can lament the fact that we are misunderstood and fade into oblivion, or we can seize the day and make ourselves recognized as the information experts we know ourselves to be. MSLA’s Curriculum and Standards Committee has just completed a document that you should find very helpful in this endeavor. With this issue of MSLA Forum Online, we unveil MSLA’s Information Fluency Standards. Valerie Diggs and Kathy Dubrovsky, with help from Deborah Owen and Carol Holley, have worked for over a year to craft this document. We will propose that the Massachusetts Department of Education adopt these Standards as they have the Instructional Technology Standards after which ours are modeled. Keep reading; keep looking for connections between what you know and the information needs of our teachers and students in this 2.0 World. Where we are going still remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, we’re not standing still! |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 May 2007 ) |
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