Libraries rarely design services to specifically exclude certain patron groups, but exclusion is often the unfortunate result of not considering the unique needs and circumstances of all community members. For example, after my son was born, I noticed that my local library offered programs for babies and toddlers only on weekday mornings. This made their … Continue reading Unintentional Inequity
I’ve similarly struggled to develop a regular practice of reflecting on my work, though I can now see why it’s so valuable. Reflective practice is the act of looking back on what you did so that you can learn from it and inform what you do in the future. Many of us do this informally … Continue reading To Move Forward, Look Back
Another core value is intellectual freedom, and we have a long and proud history of supporting it in the face of censorship. Because we attempt to represent a diversity of perspectives in our collections, displays, and programming, most libraries contain material that some patrons might find offensive. But what if a perspective repudiates the dignity … Continue reading When Values Collide
Like many parents, I worry about how to keep my videogame-obsessed child from becoming a couch potato without spending a fortune on camps. Public libraries have been a reliable ally in the war on “summer slide,” the loss of academic gains made in the previous school year. This loss tends to hit children from lower-income … Continue reading Plan Now for a STEAM-y Summer
A 2016 study of the web evaluation skills of middle school, high school, and college students by Stanford University’s History Education Group found that young people are quite likely to be duped by misleading or false information. Even Stanford’s own students, when evaluating articles from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the conservative fringe group … Continue reading Beyond Fake News
Many libraries have turned to embedded librarianship as one solution to better serving patrons and demonstrating value to their communities. The term comes from the expression embedded journalism, which was first used at the start of the Iraq War in 2003 when journalists traveled with military units and reported from within the action itself. Similarly, … Continue reading Get Out of the Library
In K–12 and academic libraries, this is becoming increasingly possible with learning analytics systems that aggregate student data to make trends visible. The systems also allow advisors, instructors, and other stakeholders to use the trend data to identify a student at risk based on specific characteristics or behaviors. They allow educators to intervene, often before … Continue reading We Can, But Should We?
In that first professional job, at a small library, all librarians—from the director to the systems librarian to the head of technical services—taught classes. None of us had been prepared by our coursework to teach, and no on-the-job training was provided. While my initial efforts to teach information literacy were cringeworthy at best, I learned … Continue reading Learning to Teach
When I was in library school 14 years ago, I didn’t hear anything about workload, emotional labor, self-care, or burnout. What I did hear a lot about was how librarians are creative, resilient, and good at doing more with less. My first job as a librarian was at a small library where we were constantly … Continue reading Less Is Not More
In some ways, the Framework was a major departure from ACRL’s previous Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Organized around six information literacy threshold concepts, the Framework is not an exhaustive list of threshold concepts or dispositions and practices. Instead, its developers encouraged libraries to determine their own programmatic learning outcomes based on local … Continue reading Framework Freakout?
I live in Portland, Oregon, which has a thriving music scene with many artists achieving national recognition. Local music has great value to the cultural fabric of a city or town, and libraries can play an important role in collecting, supporting, and promoting it. The D.C. Public Library’s D.C. Punk Archive not only preserves artifacts and … Continue reading Beautiful Music Together
Two recent publications envision this type of instruction as a shared responsibility of the librarian and the disciplinary instructor. The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, adopted by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2016, represents a significant departure from the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. It recognizes … Continue reading Information Literacy Toolkits
