Info Lit a subject?

I posted this into the AASL listserv today. What do you think?

It seems to me that it is vitally important ... that information literacy be recognized and promoted as a core subject and furthermore promoted as the particular subject that certified school librarians are highly qualified to teach. Right now, very few people understand that librarians are primary teachers because there is no readily identifiable subject associated with them. If the public really understood that information literacy is a core 21st century subject on which proper understanding of other core subjects depends, and that librarians are the only ones highly qualified to teach it, it would put librarians on parity with classroom teachers in a fundamental way that cuts off at the knees arguments that librarians are ancillary.

No one who understands the importance of information literacy would accept the argument that library aids and paraprofessionals are qualified to teach a core subject. Given that many states actually have academic standards relating to information literacy, this should be obvious, but I rarely see this case being publicly made. It places far more emphasis on the librarian than it does the library, and I think this would be a good thing for school librarians.

Those who know me know that I’m no fan of NCLB, but perhaps at least some effort should be directed at amending the next version of ESEA to reflect information literacy among the other core subjects explicitly recognized. A strong, united front that included other organizations such as ISTE and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills could help move it along.

Digital Information Management Certificate Program Application Deadline Extended; Scholarships available

The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science is pleased to announce that openings are available, as well as a number of full scholarships, in the school’s graduate certificate program in Digital Information Management. The program is scheduled to begin a new series of courses starting this summer. Prospects have until April 1, 2008 to apply for one of the openings and available financial aid.

DigIn, as the program is known, provides hands-on experience and focused instruction supporting careers in libraries and archives, cultural heritage institutions and digital collections, information repositories in government and the private sector and similar institutions. The certificate is comprised of six courses covering diverse topics including digital collections, applied technology, technology planning and leadership, policy and ethics, digital preservation and curation, and other subjects relevant to today’s digital information environments.

For people just starting in the field or considering career changes, the DigIn certificate program offers an alternative path to graduate studies that helps prepare students for success in traditional graduate programs or the workplace. The certificate also provides a means for working professionals and those who already have advanced graduate degrees in the library and information sciences to broaden their knowledge and skills in today’s rapidly evolving digital information landscape.

The program is delivered in a 100% virtual environment and has no residency requirements. Students may choose to complete the certificate in fifteen or twenty-seven months.

The certificate program has been developed in cooperation with the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records and the University of Arizona Office of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach. Major funding for program development comes from the federal government’s Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which has also provided funding for a number of scholarships.

Additional details on the program including course descriptions, admissions requirements and application forms may be found on the program website at http://sir.arizona.edu/digin. Or, contact the UA School of Information Resources and Library Science by phone at 520-621-3565 or email at sirls@email.arizona.edu.

# # #

Contact: Bruce Fulton, Communications and Outreach Librarian bfulton@email.arizona.edu
520-621-3565

Warm up your broadband and set your alarm

Found on the net: “The Librarians is a new six-part comedy series from the Australian Broadcast Company based around the highly-strung head librarian of an outer suburban Melbourne library. This new social satire premieres on Wednesday October 31 at 9.30pm. You can also watch it online at abc.net.au/tv/librarians from 10:00pm.”

The website is up now, and there is a trailer on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6_dcjR2npU. If the info is correct, 10:00pm in Melbourne will be 4:00am here. I suspect someone will post it.

Duly Noted on Heros, 10/15/2007

Annoying friend of the family: "I thought for dessert, we'd go to that wonderful yogurt place near the depot."
Our Hero: "I can't, I have to go to the library for a research paper."
Dufus friend: "The library… Haven't you ever heard of the Internet?"
Our Hero: "Actually, the research paper is on libraries and how, during the digital age, they're becoming increasingly obsolete for our generation."
[Approving nod from father and annoying friend of the family.]
Father: Do you need a lift?

Hmmm. What more can be said?

YouTube U

If we're not there already, I suspect the time is not too far away when we'll be able to string together a class or lecture on practically any topic just by linking to YouTube/Google videos. This week's topic in the class on social computing is social bookmarking. Plugging in key words like del.icio.us, flickr, social bookmarking and a few other tags in the video web sites like YouTube quickly uncovers a good selection of instructional videos. Of course some of them aren't so good, but many are both educational and entertaining. Some of them are actually videocasts from lectures or workshops at universities; others by amateurs, some of whom are releasing entire series of do-it-yourself and instructional material. Here are just a few I found to give you an idea:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3934368635322966760&hl=en

http://youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A1pOsYjCvE8

I think providing multiple pathways to content is especially important with distance/virtual learning, where there isn't regular face to face contact with students. Some students do better with the printed word; others may prefer visual, spatial, or audio modalities. Videos and podcasts offer alternatives to students who prefer them.

Libraries and social networks.

After spending the last week with readings on online communities, mostly scholarly, we're looking at Social Networks in the social computing class this coming week. I usually try to come up with a quote or two to begin the online lecture, something to get the thought processes percolating. These two quotes both came across my news crawlers, and I though they made a really poignant juxtaposition:

• Each day hundreds of people go to the Temple Terrace Public Library to use the computers and surf the web. But patrons should not expect to check out one of the most popular sites online at the library. That's because Temple Terrace has a ban on myspace.com, as well as chat rooms and some online blogs. Michael Dunn, Temple Terrace Spokesperson says, “We're not there to promote websites. We're there to help people find a job, acquire information, learn things that could help them in their lives.” [Retrieved 9/22/2007 from http://www.tampabays10.com/printfullstory.aspx?storyid=61885].
• “…It's not just about Jena, but about inequalities and disparities around the country,” said Stephanie Brown, 26, national youth director for the NAACP, who estimated that about 2,000 college students were among the throngs of mostly black protesters who overwhelmed the tiny central Louisiana town. …Brown said the Jena case resonates with the college-aged crowd because they aren't much older than the six youths charged. Many of the student protesters had been sharing information about the case through Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking Web sites. [Retrieved 9/22/2007 from http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/09/21/a1.nat.jena.0921.p1.php?section=nation_world].

Interesting times ahead for libraries, I think. I know many librarians are a bit soured on the social networking programs, but I think we need to look at libraries' involvment with these applications through a different lens. Throwing up a profile page hasn't been effective for most libraries, but that doesn't mean they can turn their backs on the phenomenon. We'll be looking at what does make sense this week. I'll be interested to see what the class thinks after some of the readings and assignments.

Banned Book Week, virtually.

I posted this into the announcements for the course in social computing I'm teaching this fall at the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science:

"This is somewhat out of synch with the class (although Social Networks are up next), but I would encourage you to use these events to help introduce you to the technologies. Give yourself some time with Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com). You only need a free, basic account. You'll spend a while on orientation island learning how to get around. If/when you're ready to move on, let me know and I'll offer a teleport to one of the information islands. Note: you need a reasonably good graphics card to run the software.

"The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has announced Banned Books Week activities for librarians and the general public in virtual worlds Second Life, Teen Second Life and on social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. ALA is working with other library partners to provide an interactive experience centered on Banned Books Week, September 29-October 6, 2007, to help librarians and others to feel comfortable in social networking spaces and to reach out to new audiences. Partners include Alliance Library System, Alliance Second Life Library, TAP Information Services and the new ALA membership group Virtual Communities and Libraries. For the schedule of activities and events, see the full announcement here."

I hope to see several of the students explore this. It's always a good learning experience when the things you are studying relate to ongoing current events and real world happenings. That's also one of the reasons I've provided a news feed on social computing current events that goes directly into the D2L learning management system via RSS.

If you plan on using any of the banned book week virtual events in your teaching or learning, let me know and we'll compare notes.

Prisons Purge Books on Faith From Libraries - New York Times

Prisons Purge Books on Faith From Libraries - New York Times: "Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. "

I'm not sure this even needs or warrants editorial comment. I would imagine most librarians are suitably appalled. You might think that with a librarian in the first lady's seat, we wouldn't see this sort of blatent political interference from the White House even given the charged nature of prison libraries. The problem is, once the books and resources are gone, even a new administration won't bring them back. Sigh.

Early thoughts on the social computing class

The social computing class I'm teaching this fall is finishing up its third week. The class is small, but the students are engaged and thinking. I'm a little surprised (but not altogether displeased) at the rather healthy skepticism I'm seeing in the student writing so far concerning the whole Library 2.0 meme. Is it really new, is it really inclusive, is it all about the tech, those kinds of things. I'm using Casey and Sevastinuk's Library 2.0 text and the final project will be to plan an implementation of some aspect of social computing in a library setting, so we'll see how opinions are shaped as we move through the course.

I posted this comment in the instructor's blog:

...One thing that concerns me at this point is how many students are waiting til the weekend to post anything into the blogs and discussion sections. Ideally, we will have a strong dialog going on; if everyone waits to post, it's hard to have a conversation. Remember that responding to your fellow students' observations is as important as making your own. We'll see how it goes, but think about getting at least some of your thoughts in earlier in the week....

On the other hand, the students are doing a great job with the blogs, and the commentary is good. One of the differences between face to face classes, especially ones that meet face to face once a week, and online classes is that the online classes really are, or can be, 24x7. I've always thought there is more potential for interaction and personalization in the online deliveries, even though they are asynchronous. That's a strong argument in favor of them. I'll probably need to give more thought to structuring the activites to encourage more participation during the week.

Thoughts?

Bruce

SIRLS Podcast

The first SIRLS podcast for this school year is up. I played around quite a bit with a new page template to embed the audio and video streams when the user clicks on the play or download link. I'm still not entirely happy with the object and embed tags, but it seems to work with the latest versions of IE, Firefox and Safari. Here's a snip:

SIRLS Podcast: "August 29, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture. Kay Mathiesen - Group Rights to Control Information versus Individual Rights to Access Information. Play or Download Abstract: Intellectual Freedom is the core value of the Library and Information Profession. As the American Library Association puts it, 'In a free society individuals are free to determine ..."

News Feed

I'm teaching a course in Social Computing this semester and one of the tools I'm using is a FURL RSS feed of news articles and posts I find interesting or applicable. If you'd like to add the feed to your newsreader to see what I'm posting, you can subscribe using this RSS link.

Ancient Rome is rebuilt digitally - Yahoo! News

A couple of projects have come to my attention lately that underscore the role digitization and virtual reality will have in making collections of all kinds available to scholars, students and the public.
Ancient Rome is rebuilt digitally - Yahoo! News with a link to Rome Reborn 1.0 is one and the article from associated press, Virtual Tours offer trips through time with links to other projects is another.

If you are wondering why you might bother with Second Life, I think this should give at least a partial answer. I think this could lead to an interesting integration of collections of artifacts that will be digitized not just in the traditional sense of creating an image, but actually rendered in a 3-d virtual sense that would allow them to be embedded in virtual world simulations and manipulated as objects in the virtual space.

Thoughts?

Wikpedia, once again

The subject of Wikipedia's accuracy and authority reared it's head again recently on the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) listserv. Librarians - many of them anyway - sure do seem to hate Wikipedia. The thread was prompted by a comment that said basically that school librarians should neither use it nor link to it, nor tolerate its use. I entered two responses, which I think are self explanatory, and I'll share them here.

The first post:
Well, RUSA named Wikipedia one of the best free reference sites in 2005 and it remains on the combined 1999-2006 index: "This is an index of the web sites included in the 1999-2006 annual lists issued by theMars Best of Free Reference Web Sites Committee of the Machine-AssistedReference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association(RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World WideWeb."

The individual RUSA site review notes the well-known potential issues. There are potential issues with any reference source, which users should be aware of and consider. That's what becoming information literate is about, in part.

To dismiss everything in Wikipedia out of hand along with any open sourceweb site in general seems almost bizarre, given the studies that have found overall reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia on par with more traditionalgeneral purpose reference resources, and superior in some areas.

That Wikipedia is not considered sufficient as a primary research source for academic assignments in higher ed is an entirely different argument with an entirely different set of guiding principles. Traditional encyclopedias thatare not open source would be equally insufficient for these purposes.

That doesn't mean, though, that Wikipedia is not an outstanding reference resource when used appropriately with an understanding of its strengths and limitations. Even in higher ed, it's often quite suitable as a ready-reference resource and also serves to seed further exploration and examination of original sources that are often cited in article bodies.

Over the course of a semester or year, students should be exposed to a variety of information resources, and they should understand when each is appropriate for a given purpose.

To take one thing out of context and condemn an entire category of reference resources that is generally held in relatively high esteem by manydistinguished colleagues in library and information science seems extreme.
-----

And here is the second:

With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, I don't think we can afford to be complacent about the changes that are occurring in online ready reference and the profound impact the read/write web has on our understanding of how information is mediated. Authority is important and students need to understand it. But it may not always be the best or only way to evaluate information resources.

Tomorrow, 5/31/2007 is a blue moon, say some. That would be the second full moon in a calendar month, according to conventional wisdom.

Today on NPR, I heard that Sky and Telescope finally 'fessed up about their complicity in fostering this wrong notion about the meaning of 'blue moon.' They tracked it back to an article originally published in Sky and Telescope that referenced an authoritative source (meaning that the sources were identified and deemed authoritative) dating to 1985. Sky and Telescope now spin it this way, "Where the authors, Margo McLoone-Basta and Alice Siegel, got it, no one seemed to know. Used in this way, the term was certainly very, very local before they included it in their book. It seemed never to have been written down before. Of course, authors sometimes "invent" information to protect themselves against plagiarists. Well, if that were the case they'd already lost, because the new "blue Moon" almost immediately entered the folklore of the modern world. It became as living a meaning as any of its predecessors."

Today alone, the Wikipedia article on Blue Moon [astronomical phenomenon] has been updated nearly a dozen times to reflect the new information. The article provides original source links to today's Sky and Telescope printed retraction and other sources reflecting scholars' interpretations of the phrase. There are a dozen citations and external links.

In contrast, searching Blue Moon in the University of Arizona's very expensive and restricted subscription to the Academic Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica references 94 articles on the query, none of which has anything to do with the blue moon topic in question. Restricting it to the phrase "blue moon" narrows the field to 13, not a single one of which is relevant. Linked articles to the phrase range from "beer" to "Mel Torme" to "Credence Clearwater Revival."

Telling students to "just say no" to Wikipedia does as much good as telling them to just say no to sex or drugs. They're perfectly capable of looking up Blue Moon both in Wikipedia and EB, and they will. We can peer down disapprovingly of their naiveté and insist on academic purity, but I think we owe them better than that. If we don't address the current environment honestly, take the time to understand it ourselves, and work with students to help them navigate it confidently, appropriately and with the requisite skepticism, we've failed.

Students today need to deal with a sea change in how information is collected, stored and accessed. As educators and information specialists, we need to mediate, not castigate. Authority is only one metric used to evaluate information resources. Today's students are tomorrow's information workers who will be using wikis and other community-based information resources and collaborative software along with both traditional and 21 st century tools to build the next generation of information resources.

Let's make sure we provide them with the analytical and higher order thinking skills to manage and use them effectively and work with them to bring them to a level of competence as knowledgeable consumers and creators of society's archive.
-----

What do you think? Let me know!

David Warlick is not usually on the short list of blogs followed by librarians, but this is relevant:

"While at the National School Boards Association Conference the other day, more than one school board member came up to me, a tech guy, and asked, "We're trying desperately to find ways to deal with budget crunches. With all of these computers and access to online information, do we really need librarians or libraries any more?" more at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/01/29/who-needs-em/ and the requisite discussion and followup.

Put David Warlick on your short list.

Librarians are obsolete; kill them.

In a dystopic future, what if the librarian is obsolete? What if there are no more books? In a totalitarian society, how does the librarian choose the manner of his execution for his obsolescence ?

These questions and more at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4992250387230373561

I admit to being a Twilight Zone fan and was watching it in my youth in original broadcast. I’m a fan and when there’s a TZ marathon, I’m there. OK, so I’m dating myself. I don’t remember this original broadcast (either 1959 or 1961, and to tell the truth, I was pretty young then) but then there’s Google and YouTube video to bring it back to us, legal or not. Watch it while you can ;)

This access point raises a number of questions. Even given its 1959 naiveté, still, it raises some issues we are debating a half century later, and how interesting it was anticipated that long ago. What do you think of the episode? What do you think of the idea that it’s important for LIS students to see it? What do you think of the notion that the only way LIS students might access it is through a video link that may violate the copyright owner’s rights? How is watching it replayed on Web video services different from Tivo’ing it from an obscure cable TV’s marathon and saving it? If I save it (legally?), how can I share it? If I’m researching topics for a paper, how do I find this, if not on a Google Video or Youtube site? You’re a librarian, how do you catalog this and provide your patrons access to it? Aaargh, the questions!

Free Google Tools?

The blog on ALA Techsource describing some of Google's new features is worth a read. I've been playing around with several of them including the docs and spreadsheets for group editing, picasa for photo sharing and storage, and of course YouTube and GoogleVideo. In general, I like them and they work pretty much as advertised. Now, there's an easy webpage creation tool and free hosting. Free for now, anyway. It's clear that Google has a cohesive strategy in mind after reading how they are bringing these things together both for education and for commerce. The question is, what is the business model?

Most people think Google is in the Search business, but then, most people think Rolex is in the watch business. Wrong on both counts. Rolex is in the lifestyle business and doesn't compete with watch companies. In a way, it's the same with Google. Google is in the advertising business and don't you forget it!

All the talk in the click-through user agreements about being beta and extending some of the freebie tools for beta testers at no charge after the beta period is over tells me that at some point, the beta period will be over and it won't be quite as free. What are they up to? It looks to me like Google is taking a page right out of Microsoft's book. Hmm.

Thoughts?

Do-it-yourself metasearch

The new Google co-op platform is interesting. Among other things, it allows one to create a custom search by entering a list of sites upon which a query will be executed. I have previously done this with excel spreadsheets (e.g. entering a list of sites, a cell to hold a search term, and a little bit of macro magic) but Google coop makes it easy. One search came back to mind immediately -- I put all the home pages from LIS schools as listed on the ALA web site into the source file. Enter a search term (e.g. "tuition") and all the LIS school pages are searched. These searches can be shared or embedded in web pages. You can try my LISSchoolSearch and let me know what you think.

If I have some time, I'd like to put together a simple-minded search using the pathfinders and subject guide pages of top libraries as the restricted set of resources. If you get to it before I do, let me know.

John Berry blogs

Former Library Journal editor John Berry has forayed into the blogosphere with his own column, Blatant Berry. I took a writing class from John as part of my MLS program at the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science. John doesn't pull any punches and he knows as much about the real world of libraries and librarianship as any. Needless to say, it's on my subscription list.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

In his March, 2005 Wall Street Journal Tech Column, writer Walter S. Mossberg inveighs against Google's Autolink, which changes the rendering of the display of a web site to facilitate additional search. His argument, basically, is that we outght to be bound by the author's vision of how the page should look. Here is my response:

Regarding your column on Google’s Autolink Feature -- What a strange argument! By this logic, I shouldn’t be blocking those carefully placed pop up ads web authors so thoughtfully provide, so the blocker must go. The sight and hearing impaired must deactivate their HTML rendering software, which alters the real-time presentation of web content with alternate text and links useful to them. I must not turn off picture, hyperlink and audio file rendering options in IE or Foxfire, all basic browser options today. That is what would be required, at least, if the faithfully rendered argument stands.

This article is highly problematic in that it leads readers to assume, mistakenly, that somehow the toolbar is changing the author’s copy of the page. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing changed is a particular arrangement of binary data on a temporary memory chip in my own computer. And I’m changing it by my own will, not someone else’s. It has absolutely no effect on how others want to consume this information.

And that’s what it is – information that I have acquired and may choose to consume in any number of ways that all copyright principles of fair use and first sale permit and uphold. I can, of course, parse the data stream with an HTML rendering software program (a browser), which is what most people do. I can also, without ever consuming it through a browser engine, convert its words to audio (a text to speech converter), erase or delete any portions I like (e.g. graphics that may contain hostile agents, or unwanted pop-ups, frames, annoying midi tunes and other questionable practices), or analyze it with an agent to extract key words and build an index.

While a newspaper columnist might wish this morning’s opus not be used as a bird cage liner, neither does he have the right to prevent his readers from using it thusly. Once I’ve taken possession of the copy, its fate is of my choosing. In much the same way, while a web designer may indeed have put as much thought into his carefully placed links and destinations as the columnist his considered prose, once the packets hit my registers and render my own personal copy, it’s between me and my processor.

Now if you are talking about someone unethically hijacking my browser without my knowledge or will, that’s a different story -- one that has already been written, for which at least one technological solution is to scrub, preprocess and render in the manner I choose HTML code in which someone has carefully placed links and selected “special” destinations I may not want especially to visit. Altering my copy of someone else’s HTML isn’t always a bad thing, you know…

Bruce Fulton

Want a job? Hand over your SAT results | csmonitor.com

Want a job? Hand over your SAT results | csmonitor.com

The private sector has long complained that high schools do not turn out students with critical thinking skills and the kind of cognitive abilities -- such as communication, collaboration and problem solving -- that comprise an effective workforce. Colleges and Universities echo that cry and provide remedial courses designed to scaffold students to a level of performance prerequisite to success.

Presumably, students do learn over the course of acquiring a degree. The private sector thinks so too, and doesn't recruit SAT wizards right out of high school. So it is curious indeed that a high school SAT score would be considered relevant four or more years and 120+ credit hours later. Presumably, a college graduate with four years of college math would better a high school score achieved through perhaps less than exemplary courses and teachers who in many cases may not even have majored in math.

We are all looking for that magical assessment bullet. The one that provides a real measure of a person's ablility to solve real-world problems and perform real-world work. The SAT is not that, and wasn't designed for that purpose. Indeed, it can be argued that such a test doesn't exist. To force it into that mold is, in the end, an admission of laziness and an inability or unwillingness to expend the time and effort needed to evaluate and place individual holistically based on proven ability and work product.

And then the question becomes, who really loses here?