Florida Library Association conference

Even though I didn't find time to take photos, the Florida Library Association conference in Orlando was thoroughly enjoyable. I attended for only one of the three days, but managed to squeeze in four full presentations, and part of a fifth.

Although it would be difficult to give a ranking to the sessions, I have to say that I was most impressed by the group from Florida State University. Their presentation on strategic planning was informative and engaging. They included a hands-on group activity that helped to bring the subject to life, and promoted an exchange of ideas among the participants. It also provided me with a point of departure for thinking about these issues in the future.

I also managed to attend presentations on library expansion, instant messaging for virtual reference, embedded librarianship, and the tail end of session on making web videos for library outreach. As I go over my notes and other materials from the conference, I realize that I'm still processing a lot of information.

In particular, the session on embedded librarianship was of great interest to me in terms of re-thinking the varying levels of collaboration with classroom faculty that are possible through the use of course management software. I'm sure that I'll be coming back to this topic in future posts. In the meantime, all the librarians at my college library will be having our end-of-semester planning meeting next week. That will also provide ample material for posts over the summer.

Project Information Literacy

I'm a bit late in updating the blog this month. This is partly attributable to the usual end-of-semester hectic schedule, but also partly due to the fact that there are so many different things I've wanted to blog about that I had trouble making up my mind. In the event, I've settled on Project Information Literacy, which as captured a lot of my interest lately.

Project Information Literacy, which is based at the University of Washington's Information School, is conducting national studies of the ways that "early adults" on college campuses understand and conduct research. Since its inception in 2008, PIL has conducted discussion groups at seven different colleges nationwide to collect data about how these students locate, evaluate, select and use information. The schools chosen ranged from elite institutions to state universities, community colleges, and small liberal arts colleges.

See: Project Information Literacy. 2009. Information School, University of Washington. Web. 2 May 2009

In their preliminary progress report, released in February, PIL directors Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg note that many students in the digital age are confused and frustrated by the research process and are also challenged by the "vast and ever-changing information landscape." (Head and Eisenberg, 13)

Currently, PIL is conducting web-based surveys of college students nationwide, which will be released later this year. This is a much needed research project that is taking a comprehensive look at the challenges faced by today's college students in understanding how to conduct research. It also represents a potentially valuable tool for librarians to use in re-conceptualizing the process of information literacy instruction.

To hear a First Mondays podcast interview with Dr. Alison Head, co-director of PIL, click here.

Next week, I'm off to the Florida Library Association conference. I plan for my next entry to be inspired by what I see and hear there.

Sustainability in higher education

The new byword at the college where I work is sustainability. At our recent faculty professional development meeting, we heard presentations by representatives from three different academic institutions that have integrated the concepts and practices of sustainability into their curricula and into their institutional cultures. Although I can't speak for my colleagues, I found the presentations stimulating, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities opened up by this new focus.

An emphasis on environmental sustainability has broad implications for a high profile public institution - everything from ordinary practices like recycling, conserving electricity, water use, and paper use to larger considerations such as availability of mass transit for students, limits on parking, and the construction of green buildings.

In a fairly recent article in Planning for Higher Education, historian Peter Bardaglio, discussed how four different institutions, Northern Arizona University, Emory University, Berea College and Ithaca College are incorporating sustainability into their curricula. See: Bardaglio, Peter W. "A Moment of Grace" Integrating Sustainability into the Undergraduate Curriculum." Planning for Higher Education 36, no. 1 (October/December 2007): 16-22.

Bardaglio draws on the work of other scholars to explain that values of ecological sustainability present a challenge to the dominant paradigm in higher education. That is, most teaching and learning takes place within defined disciplinary boudaries, and concerns either "first order" learning about sustainability, or "second order" learning that emphasizes acquiring the skills needed to effect change. He notes that many scholars point to the need for a "third order" learning in which "continual exploration through practice" contributes to an educational environment that enables students to use their creativity to understand sustainability in a larger context, and to make connections that can lead to solving real-word problems. (Bardaglio, 17-18)

The examples that Bardaglio gives of integration of sustainability into higher education curricula run the gamut from creating institutes that reach accross disciplinary boundaries to train faculty how to integrate environmental consciousness into their subjects, to the creation of green and self-suffcient student housing, and partnering with non-profits to create project based sustainabiliy field work for students in a variety of areas. These, of course, are only first steps, but they illustrate the kinds of strides that can be made when institutions act creatively, partner with other institutions and with outside groups, and seek grants from the federal government and from foundations.

For teaching faculty, and for those of us who are instruction librarians, the focus on sustainability represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Without exception, the library staff have embraced the new emphasis on sustainability. It has stimulated new thinking about collection development, library instruction, and even circulation procedures. This creates an opportunity for the library to take the lead in supporting an important new value in the college's institutional culture. We are also challenged to be ready to meet the needs of students with new assignments focused on sustainability, and to help faculty find the materials they need to design such assignments.

Many teaching faculty have also expressed enthusiasm about the new focus, and we are already seeing requests to design library instruction modules around sustainability issues. Some, however, feel that they are already incorporating some aspect of environmental awareness into their courses in the form of current affairs and environmental science assignments. Others wonder how these issues are directly relevant to the educational content that they deliver, and some resent the idea of yet another college mandate that they must shoehorn into their already crowded syllabi.

Certainly, these are not unimportant objections. But, I hope that over time growing information about sustainability combined with increased sustainable practices will help to achieve a kind of critical mass, so that this issue will become so natural that it is integrated into the curriculum as a matter of course, much as issues of diversity are already.

New Semester - Mixed Bag

I'm opening the new year with an eclectic mix of items. I continue to be interested in digital history, so I'm going to mention a new website, and I'm also going to touch on a topic that (unfortunately) is becoming a perennial one - public rudeness and incivility.

Digital History

Considering last month's post regarding digital history, I've been on the lookout for good digital history sources. And, now that the semester is underway, I'm particularly interested in keeping my collection of history links up to date. A really good site that's come to my attention lately is called Digital Vaults. Created by the National Archives, this site was recently reviewed in History Eduction News, a publication of the Center for History and New Media.

Digital Vaults is an interactive website containing more than 1,200 items - official documents, images, maps, etc. It can be browsed easily through a system of tags indicating subject areas, and searches can be further refined through "filters" that sort by media type, time frame, or relevance. The site is visually appealing, and employs a visual search interface that graphically displays links. Each item has a brief annotation, and can be viewed in detail with a zoom function. You can also collect items, and manipulate them to create posters or videos. There is a free login that enables users to create an account so they can save and email their collections and projects. I've created an account, and I'm excited about experimenting with it, and sharing it with our faculty.

Incivility in the Academic Library

On a less than exciting note, there is the issue of the growing problem of bad public behavior, or incivility. Certainly, this is a problem that's been festering in our public culture for more than a decade, but it seems to have been more strongly manifest in recent years. I've just read an interesting piece from the ACRLog, in which one of the bloggers, an academic librarian from Pennsylvania, summarized a discussion on this topic by Frank Farley, Psychology Chair at Drexel. Referencing current research, Farley points to a number of factors that are driving the phenomenon of public incivility, mostly emanating from an increasingly juvenile and debased popular culture, as evinced in the narcissistic zero-sum-game ethos portrayed in "reality TV" programs. According to Farley, these influences, along with a "culture of complaint" fostered in the mass media, are amplified by anonymous and ubiquitous technologies like the Internet.

I think that those of us who have worked in academia for any length of time are only too familiar with these issues as they affect the college classroom and the academic library. The likelihood, however, that colleges and universities will ever see a return to some mythical halcyon days of buttoned-down quiet, scholarly contemplation, and polite discourse is probably remote. Nevertheless, Farley recommends an article that summarizes research into student incivility and suggests methods than can be used to cope with the problem. That's something that we can all profit from. See: Jennifer Schroeder and Harvetta Robertson. "Civility in the College Classroom" Psychological Science 21, no. 10 (Nov. 2008).