Princh: Canadian Librarians: Creating innovative strategies on their path to success – Interview with Stephen Abram

By: Petra Paraschiv
November 7, 2017

Canadian Library Month occurs every October and during this time librarians have the chance to celebrate their activity and users have the chance to reflect on the important role libraries play in their lives. To learn more about libraries in Canada, we had a chat with Stephen Abram.

Stephen is a renowned library trend watcher, keynote speaker, innovator and author of the very popular Stephen’s Lighthouse blog, as well as hundreds of articles and many books.

1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your activity in the library world?

 

I am the Executive Director of the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries (FOPL), where I represent Ontario’s 306+ public library systems to all levels of government. I have deep roots in Canada’s library sector as a Strategy and Direction Planning Consultant for libraries and the information industry. I am also the Principal of Lighthouse Consulting Inc.

I have been President of the Ontario Library Association, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) internationally and the Canadian Library Association. I teach at the graduate level at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information (iSchool) as well as planning iSchool Symposia.

2. We are all aware of a certain existential library crisis in some countries but how is the situation in Canada? What challenges do you face?

 

While some define the crisis in purely funding terms, the real existential crisis is of professionals’ ongoing struggle with defining our relevance in the 21^st Century. Speaking with one voice in a time of fragmentation amongst many roles is a challenge.

That said, I believe that funding success is merely a measurement of how well you have lobbied for and communicated your value to your funders which is not the real goal. Our real goal is to move minds and that requires a sincere change in our own mindsets. One of the great advocates of these changes is R. David Lankes which is shown through his books, articles, presentations and blog.

The best way to promote libraries is through telling stories and providing a platform for our members to communicate to those in the funding communities and government, the value and impact of libraries. However, you have to have your research, studies, reports and data in order and to build on that.

3. But how can libraries get this intimate knowledge of their communities? What initiatives do you take?

 

There are a ton of wonderful initiatives in Canada and the province of Ontario. When I joined FOPL as Executive Director almost four years ago, we identified a few things that weren’t in our current strategic toolkit. We were determined to change this.

In alliance with all major Ontario associations and agencies, we collaborated on two summits where representatives from every library system in the province, indigenous libraries, and partner/vendor organizations met at the Royal York Hotel to choose and prioritize the top four goals we would work on collectively. These were called Libraries 2020 and Libraries 2025. We set out to get funding based on these goals and received a one-time grant of $15 million (plus a further $3 million) to achieve our goals.

We didn’t know our data.

The public library annual data collection was tied up in a government mainframe and locked up in PDFs. We successfully lobbied to have the data made available. We developed a service where all library systems could order custom peer library reports and compare themselves on these measures.

We didn’t have a strategy that provided a single learning system for the provinces’ libraries.

We bought, populated, and promoted a new e-learning system called LearnHQ for our libraries. It now has thousands of courses on all topics for librarians, technicians, library board trustees, leaders, managers, and more.

We didn’t have up-to-date data on what the public opinion was in Ontario about public libraries.
FOPL carried out a full scale, professional survey of Ontarians. This was a valid survey upon which we could rely on to demonstrate the love Ontarians had for their public libraries, the high respect they have and usage. Also, for example, their attitudes towards new services like maker-spaces, technological change and e-books.

We didn’t have a solid branding and marketing strategy.
We invested in face-to-face interviews to discover our ‘brand’ as a public library.  We landed on a great tagline, “A Visit WILL Get You Thinking!”, and launched this with a three-year commitment nationally promoted through a revitalized Ontario Public Library Week and Canadian Library Month.

We couldn’t afford to advertise in major periodical and newspapers or on television.
FOPL used money from our strategic investment funding from our libraries to develop a social media strategy. We hired a social media guru to train all library systems in Ontario on the critical components of social media success. Our early results showed 500% to 750% growth in social media engagement for our member public libraries.  This is called OpenMediaDesk.

Our big initiative this year is to respond to the Ontario government’s Culture Strategy Public Library Program Funding Review which we suggested doing to move towards modernizing the province’s relationship with public libraries. We have conversations with the civil servants who matter and making progress to ultimately ‘ask’ for an additional $65 million in a new funding framework as we lead up to a provincial election.

4. How can libraries actively engage with all parts of the community?

 

This is a big question! Off the top of my head, there are a number of ways:

1. Develop an engagement strategy and set priorities for engagement.
You cannot hit everyone at once and, while each niche shares your community, age, stage, ethnic, and other demographics often predict the needs and you need to focus on that for successful communication and engagement. In Ontario, the government leadership is pushing a focus (with funding eventually) on refugees, new Canadians, indigenous communities, arts and culture employment, seniors social isolation, anti-poverty, pre-schooler readiness, teens and college readiness, and digital skills training.

2. Get out and engage in the community and they’ll engage with you.
Many Canadian public libraries have created community liaison librarians who get out into the community with programs, events, mobile maker, books, early years centres, and so much more. Each target outreach is based on their goals.

3. Listen! Talk to principals and teachers. Talk to teens in their world, not your world.
I’ve done engagement in soup kitchens and half-way houses where I was delighted to find that every resident had a library card! Visit seniors’ centres and see how you can work together. You’re only limited by your imagination, leadership, and energy.

4. You can’t do it all alone and you can never have enough staff or too many partners.
Consider using the Tamarack Institute’s ABCD community asset mapping approach. Map the services in your community related to social services, education, business, culture and more. Then analyze the results and look for potential partners and gaps. Filter the results through your library’s strategic priorities and make choices of whom to contact. Over the years you’ll be intimately webbed through your community and have a delightful range of partners to engage beyond just your member.

5. Do you have some final advice for librarians worldwide?

 

We’re a few years into this and have made progress on many fronts. We’re now focusing on what we need as we move forward. This includes some things that we all must consider:

– We need to focus on leadership skills and competencies for our staff as we transition our senior leadership to retirement.
– We need to hop on the digital programs band wagon and ensure that our digital branches model has as much of the physical branch experience as they can. Examples of this are, Lynda.com, Khan Academy, TED, and Gale Courses – the thin edge of the wedge.
– We need to build our skills for lobbying and influence (and the respect for same). We need to build stronger relationships with the policy makers and politicians. A smallish cadre of trained librarians with these power-skills is our goal.

Hope you have enjoyed our talk with Stephen Abram. In case you want to find out more about Canadian Librarians and their strategies, you can get in touch with Stephen on Twitter at @sabram or by e-mail at Stephen.Abram@gmail.com. We will be back next week with another interesting article!

Source: Princh

Library Journal: The Pipeline Problem: It's Up To Us To Close the Persistent Gender Gap

The Pipeline Problem: It’s Up To Us To Close the Persistent Gender Gap
Editorial
By Rebecca T. Miller
November 6, 2017

I traveled to Indianapolis last month to speak to a group of women leaders about fake news and information literacy. I was invited by Jackie Nytes, the CEO of the Indianapolis Public Library, who is pretty impressive herself. Beyond addressing information literacy with possible change agents, the event presented an opportunity for me to reflect on how far women have come in the journey toward equality in the workplace and how important mentorship and modeling is in that long march.

The recent 2017 Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey & Company and Lean In illustrates just how solid the glass ceiling is. Just about 20% of C-suite jobs are held by women, according to data captured from 222 firms. White women bring up the average; for women of color, the situation is worse: they hold only about 3% of C-suite jobs. The study places the problem in the context of a pipeline (see graphic below) and explores some of the reasons it persists, as well as positing some proactive steps organizations can take.

Relevant to librarianship, the promotion gap remains even in female-dominated fields. Though the study focused on corporate America, “we did examine some fields that have a disproportionate share of women. For example, health care and retail,” Irina Starikova, partner, McKinsey & Co., told LJ. “What we find is that despite being overrepresented at the bottom of the pipeline (73% of entry-level positions in health care are filled by women and 60% of those in retail), by the time they reach senior ranks (VP and above)…just about a third of C-suite roles in these fields are filled by women, which is proportionally a similar rate of drop-off relative to the early pipeline numbers as other industries.”

The library field lacks a recent comprehensive look at this, but LJ’s annual Placements and Salaries Survey (“Librarians Everywhere”) indicates that we, too, have a ways to go.

I like that the Lean In study offers practical insight into what drives better outcomes and points to proactive steps managers and organizations can take to foster more women leaders. “We find in our research that retention isn’t the challenge,” said Starikova. “It’s largely a promotion problem.”
What are companies that are closing the gap faster doing? According to Starikova, they “vocalize their commitment across the company and link it to a business case”; they develop managers “that advocate for women and are champions for gender diversity”; they “implement programs specifically designed to improve the promotion rates of women within their organization”; they provide flexible work environments; and they both track and share metrics on gender diversity companywide.

There is much in the report that libraries can use when building programs to support workforce development. The importance of mentoring also resonates throughout the study, bringing me back to the positive impact one person can make. And there is still more impact we can make when our institutions follow through on commitment with action.


Source: Library Journal

The Inquirer: A Good Librarian Can Do a Lot for Your Health

A good librarian can do a lot for your health
Medical librarians, and the research they perform, can be an indispensable part of any health team
by Bob Kieserman, For the Inquirer
November 1, 2017


Some say that a doctor’s best friend is a pharmacist. As patients, we know the pharmacist works with the doctor to make sure that we get the best and safest medication for our particular medical condition, and we know that sometimes the pharmacist needs to make a change from what the doctor prescribed to better fit our overall medication profile. It is a good partnership. But doctors have another important friend that most patients do not know about.

Medical librarians work in most hospitals throughout the Greater Philadelphia area. They serve medical students throughout their training, as well as doctors and nurses, with their research and daily practice.

“We explain to the new medical residents at our annual boot camp that we can save them time and get them the information they need,” said Barbara Miller, library director of Cooper Medical School at Rowan University. “Needless to say, the young doctors immediately understand how we can benefit them.”

While many medical librarians work in a library housed in the hospital, others work right in the operating room, accessing information for surgeons as they need it. Others roam the hospital equipped with laptops and help the doctors and nurses on the patient floors.

Still others, such as those at the Connelly Resource Center for Families at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, work directly with parents. providing information on their children’s conditions. Other medical librarians work in universities as liaisons to the clinical programs such as nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language pathology, and genetic counseling.

How Patients Benefit

When nurses provide information as part of patient education, it often has been prepared by the medical library staff. The team at Cooper works closely with new nurses, training them on how to best work with the librarians, as well as with the senior nurses, teaching them how to access information from the databases that the medical librarians manage and maintain.

It is not surprising that medical librarians such as Karen Stesis, a member of the Cooper team, thinks it’s a bad idea for patients to try to diagnose themselves using random websites.

“Much of the medical information online is not accurate,” she said. “Medline Plus and other resources provided through the National Library of Medicine, free to every American, is the best use of our tax dollars. If a patient is going to seek out information online, they should go to Medline and then review what they find with their doctor. Using the information any other way is dangerous and foolish.”

The benefit to physicians

The doctors at Cooper depend on the medical library staff to help them stay current with information. “There is so much information out there on new medical discoveries and treatment options, that no one person, especially a busy doctor, can keep track of it,” said Benjamin Saracco, another recent addition to the staff. “When they need to know, we provide them with the information they need.”

Said Assistant Library Director Susan Cavanaugh: “We focus on evidence-based medicine, since that is what the doctors and the hospitals practice. When a provider needs information on a disease or a treatment option, they call upon us and we go to work as fast as we can.”

Amanda Adams, reference and instruction librarian at Cooper, describes her team’s role as “providing access to information at the point of need, whether it is in the medical office, the classroom, or on the hospital floor.”

Free consumer health information

As a medical librarian myself, I answer requests from patients throughout the country who seek articles containing easy-to-understand information on conditions such as heart disease, celiac disease, diabetes, cancer, and multiple sclerosis. This search service, using sources such as the National Library of Medicine, the Mayo Clinic, the National Cancer Institute, and many more, is offered at no cost to patients through The Power of the Patient Project.

Bob Kieserman is executive director of the Cherry Hill-based Power of the Patient Project.

Source: The Inquirer

Citylab: The Angriest Librarian is Full of Hope

The Angriest Librarian Is Full of Hope
After his profanity-laced tweetstorm went viral last week, Portland student librarian Alex Halpern found himself speaking up for his embattled profession.
Alex Halperin
October 29, 2017

I didn’t get into librarianship for the shushing, but when the opportunity arises, I seize it. Particularly when it’s someone being wrong on the internet.

That’s what happened this week, when Andre Walker, a columnist for the New York Observer, presented this insight on Twitter.

A day later, having stewed about it for a while, I responded thusly.

My ensuing tweetstorm went viral, got picked up by several outlets, and The Angriest Librarian burst out into the real world.

While I never intended to become The Angriest Librarian, a lifelong inability to hold my tongue—and my frustration with the permeating stereotypes of 1950s-era public libraries—seems to have made it inevitable. So, when I was confronted with yet another blowhard who couldn’t see the value his tax dollars were placing right in front of his face, I had no choice. Over the next few days, I picked up 15,000 followers and found myself in a position to become a public face for my besieged profession.

For far too many people, the word library conjures up an image of a dusty old building, full of dusty people reading dusty relics. For others, it’s the stereotype of the “sexy librarian,” the nubile authoritarian who shushes you into the stacks. In reality, what public libraries have become in the 21st century is a model for building community and enhancing opportunities for underserved and marginalized people. Those dusty books still exist, but today they’re side by side with technology, maker spaces, interactive learning environments, and librarians that are trained to teach their communities how to use them.

The rant that led me to my brief bout of Twitter fame was likely popular because of my stereotype-defying profanity and insults, but the fact that it resonated so strongly with librarians was what convinced me that we are on the right track as a profession. Those mousy, quiet librarians are a thing of the past, if in fact they ever existed at all outside of Hollywood. Today, depending on the community they serve, a public librarian is part educator, part social worker, and part Human Google. What they aren’t is a living anachronism, an out-of-touch holdout in a dying job who’s consigned to a desk, scolding kids for returning books a few days late.

An urban librarian in a struggling neighborhood, like Chera Kowalski in Philadelphia’s Kensington, is just as likely to be saving lives by giving Narcan to overdosed patrons as she is to be recommending a new Young Adult series. The new model of librarianship is about embracing more than just books—it’s about making a positive impact on the lives of patrons. My liberal use of the word “motherfucker” may have been the most popular aspect of my Twitter rant, but the most important was my message to LGBT teens, and to immigrants, and to the homeless and poor: The library is a safe place for you to come and get what you need.

Over the last week, I have heard from hundreds of librarians, ALL of whom have embraced both my message, and my way of sharing it. We are a profession in dire need of a makeover, and a new generation of librarians is absolutely killing it in the effort to make that happen. Librarians like Sarah Houghton in California and Kristen Arnett in Florida, who just held her own book release party in a 7-Eleven, are changing perceptions about what it means to be a librarian in the 21st century, all while providing kick-ass service to their patrons.

We have a long way to go to make libraries not just relevant but revolutionary. While library use is extremely popular among Millennials, budgets are still being cut across the country. Here in Oregon, the rural Douglas County Library System shut down completely after voters rejected a property tax increase. But if the reception I received on Twitter this week is any indication, we are making serious progress.

Someone asked me why I got into libraries. My answer—though I’ve been “into” libraries my whole life—was simple: I believe in reducing barriers to better outcomes for marginalized and underserved populations, motherfucker.

About the Author
Alex Halpern
@HALPERNALEX
Alex Halpern is an MLS student in the Portland, Oregon Cohort of Emporia State University and the Research Director of networkofcare.org. He previously served on the board of National Novel Writing Month.


Source: Citylab

Wall Street Journal: Google, Shmoogle. Reference Librarians Are Busier Than Ever

Google, Shmoogle. Reference Librarians Are Busier Than Ever
By James R. Hagerty
November 15, 2017

Sherry Yadlosky, a staff member at the Carnegie Library in this city’s Oakland district, answered the phone in her cubicle late in the afternoon of Nov. 1. A woman wanted to know who would be pitching for the Dodgers that night in the final game of the World Series.

Ms. Yadlosky consulted a sports website. “It looks like they’re going to be starting Yu Darvish, ” she said. The caller asked whether Mr. Darvish was a good pitcher. Ms. Yadlosky thought about it for a moment, then said: “It depends on your definition of good.”

After taking the call, Ms. Yadlosky, 28 years old, recalled a library patron who once asked her whether bar codes on store merchandise contained the Mark of the Beast, a symbol discussed in the Book of Revelation. “Um, no,” she said.

Carved in stone over the library’s arched entrance is the motto “Free to the People.” That applies not just to books but to answers for almost any question posed to librarians.

Even in the internet age, reference librarians still dig up answers that require extra effort, searching old books, microfilm and paper files, looking for everything from owners of long-defunct firms to 19th-century weather reports.

Though online searches are now at the fingertips of most people, many still prefer to call or visit a library. Some can’t or don’t use computers; others recognize librarians have search skills and access to databases that search engines can’t match.

“I’m pre-Google,” said Kosmo Vinyl, who lives in New York and describes himself as an artist and cultural curator. “I don’t think you can find everything online, at all.” He is working on a project involving sports history in Atlanta. “The public library guys there have been fantastic,” he said. After consulting old city directories, librarian John Wright recently supplied Mr. Vinyl with details about vanished businesses and their owners.

Mr. Wright relishes the variety in his job. A woman from the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta recently told him her teenage son had been seeing ghosts in their house. “He sees a man, a woman, a child and, interestingly, a dog,” Mr. Wright said. “I’ve never heard of people seeing dogs before.” He offered to research her neighborhood’s history to see if any past events might shed light on the apparitions.

Librarians generally are happy to receive questions, partly because serving lots of people helps them justify taxpayer funding. The Hennepin County public libraries in Minnesota calculate that they answer about 1.3 million questions a year. The county’s population is about 1.2 million.

Privacy is respected. When someone asked the Pittsburgh library how to build a guillotine, a librarian emailed diagrams from a German website without asking questions.

Many people need help applying for a job online, setting up an email account or finding social services. Some want a phone number; others seek medical or legal information. A few call in to ask for the weather forecast or help with household-budget calculations. Librarians sometimes provide recipes or instructions for making papier-mâché.

Even in Silicon Valley, where people might be expected to be search wizards, libraries get plenty of questions. One caller asked the Mountain View, Calif., Public Library for the address of the White House.

“There’s no really stupid question,” said Cat Bierling of the Des Moines Public Library, though some can be frustrating. A woman recently called to ask whether the hurricanes she had been hearing about were fake news. Ms. Bierling informed her that numerous credible news organizations had reported the storms.

Often it isn’t immediately clear exactly what the patron wants. A caller in Des Moines asked for the name of an actor who died of cancer after going to Mexico for treatment. Ms. Bierling did an internet search and identified the actor as Steve McQueen. The caller then asked for the name of a movie involving Mr. McQueen and a young boy. Ms. Bierling determined that the film in question was probably “The Reivers.” Did the library have the DVD? Ms. Bierling reserved it for the caller.

At the Hennepin County public libraries in Minnesota, Jonathan Copeland specializes in questions about pop music. He said one caller wanted to find a “nasty” song that John Lennon wrote about Bob Dylan. The librarian identified two printed sources referring to Mr. Lennon’s “Serve Yourself,” a sendup of Mr. Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody.”

James Scott, a Sacramento librarian, said one woman woke up with a red blotch on her skin and wanted to know if it was in the shape of any meaningful symbol. He offered books on symbology.

“We’ll get folks that call up and say I woke up this morning and I had this trippy dream and I wonder if you have anything that can help me,” Mr. Scott said. He recommends books on the interpretation of dreams.

By searching through microfilm or paper files, librarians can find news stories unavailable on the internet. Sarah McGowan, a librarian in the Mt. Lebanon, Pa., public library, was asked by a woman to help figure out whether her former husband was dead. Ms. McGowan couldn’t give a definitive answer but found no obituaries for him.

A novelist recently asked librarians in Cleveland whether it snowed in northeastern Ohio on a certain date in 1837. After scouring old newspapers, they couldn’t say for sure but did know that there had been snowy weather that week.

In Pittsburgh, librarians sometimes consult the “Standard Handbook for Secretaries,” 1975 edition, to help patrons find the proper form for condolence notes or other types of letters.

Mary Phillips, a reference librarian there, recalls being asked how much clouds weigh. She tracked down a relevant paper from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a podcast from Radiolab. “It was a satisfying multimedia search experience,” she said.

She also has been helping a man who wants to know how the graphical design of instruction books for the tax form 1040 has evolved over the decades. She couldn’t find many images of old tax booklets on the internet, so Ms. Phillips has requested help from archivists at the Internal Revenue Service.

“It’s not a stumper,” Ms. Phillips said of the form 1040 query, “but it’s not easily unlocked.”


Source: WSJ.com"

JSTOR Daily: How Librarians Can Be Digital Mentors for Teens

How Librarians Can Be Digital Mentors for Teens
Alexandra Samuel
November 14, 2017

What is the role of librarians, archivists, media trainers, and other information professionals in fostering a healthy digital world for the next generation?

That’s the question I want to tackle this week, in response to a delightful letter I recently received. This letter addressed my recent JSTOR Daily column, “Yes, Smartphones Are Destroying A Generation, But Not Of Kids.”

In her biweekly column “The Digital Voyage,” Alexandra Samuel investigates the key psychological, social, and practical challenges of migrating to an online world.

The letter came from a group of five graduate students in the Masters of Information Science program at the University of Texas at Austin. The students are taking Professor Amelia Acker’s course on Information in Social and Cultural Context, which included a unit about how screens are affecting the reading habits of young people. My earlier article, which addressed the recurring alarm over kids and screen time, talked about the importance of parents guiding kids’ screen habits as digital mentors. Here’s what Prof. Acker’s students still want to know:

[W]e were left wondering how to best serve as digital mentors in our role as information professionals. How can we practically bring these values into institutional spaces such as archives, libraries, community organizations, and cultural centers? Furthermore, do you believe these attitudes on parenting could, or will, change based on technological innovations? Many articles on parenting and technology focus on age differences. How do you think other cultural and identify factors such as race, gender, class and disability inform parents’ relationships and attitudes towards technology?

It’s a complex set of questions, so let me start by saying I feel a tiny bit more hopeful about the future of our species if today’s information science students are thinking about how they can work to foster profound digital literacy across difference. Maybe we’re not doomed, after all!

Why Parents Aren’t Always the Best Digital Mentors

The letter I received from the five Masters of Information Science students—oh, I have to call them the MI-5—highlights a huge obstacle to cultivating a healthy digital experience and culture among the young people who are now growing up online. Many of the principles and practices that make for effective offline engagement are based on wisdom and habits that have been passed down from generation to generation. But the mentorship that young people require online calls for a new type of wisdom: a wisdom that can be informed by knowledge of the pre-digital world, but which also needs to draw on digital experience and expertise.

And the truth is, not all parents are in the same position to provide that kind of mentorship.  In part, that’s because parents have enormous discrepancies in their level of tech expertise and comfort—though mentorship truly is less about tech expertise than about actually engaging in conversation with kids about what they’re doing online, and why.

But there is a whole other type of digital divide, beyond the simple divide in who has access to devices and connectivity, created by the very differences the MI-5 allude to in their letter. Class differences mean some kids have parents who have money to enroll them in tech camps and the time to talk with them about their online activities, while others have parents working a second shift and hoping their kids stay out of trouble on Snapchat.

Disability—either the parent or the child’s—can make technology even more essential for learning, socialization, and daily life, but it can also make the work of digital mentorship far more demanding (as you’ll gather if you read anything about the screen struggles I’ve had with my autistic son.) Gender and race differences mean some kids face much higher risks online—like being bullied or targeted based on their gender or color. That raises the stakes for digital mentorship, because we’re now asking parents to help their kids navigate terrain that big tech providers like Facebook and Twitter struggle to address.

Librarians and Information Professionals as Role Models

It’s crucial that the work of mentorship take place beyond the imperfect and unequal world of private families, and extend into the spaces that can level the playing field: the libraries, community organizations, and cultural centers referenced by the MI-5. (I kind of want to pack my 14-year-old into a suitcase right now, and send them off to Austin to see what the 5 can do for their digital smarts.)

But that’s tricky, because a lot of what effective mentor parents do (establishing screen agreements, modelling appropriate tech usage, observing the impact of different kinds of online activities) is outside the purview of your friendly neighborhood librarian, community media trainer, or cultural programmer. Libraries and community organizations can provide training and guidance for parents who want to become digital mentors—in fact, a number of library groups have had me deliver just that kind of workshop—but at the end of the day, that particular sort of mentorship work needs to get done in the sustained context of parent-child, teacher, or counselling relationships.

Librarians and others can help shift kids from being passive technology consumers and towards being active technology maker-creators.

That still leaves a whole lot on the table for the MI-5 and other future-minded information professionals. The obvious starting point: Digital learning and literacy. Libraries, community centers, and media centers already offer lots of digital skills training; these programs are crucial resources for helping young people develop the hard skills they need to function effectively in the digital world.

But information professionals can go well beyond the basics of software training by offering programming and activities that help shift kids from being passive technology consumers and towards being active technology maker-creators. That work is going to have even greater impact if it’s not constrained to the physical space of a few publicly funded institutions, as Linda W. Braun points out in her thoughtful article about virtual outreach. I love this hypothetical example from her article:

Ask tweens and teens to create Vine videos as part of a STEM moviemaking program. You provide the program information virtually and allow youth to participate without setting foot in the library. While they are taking part in the program, you communicate with them using Twitter, Facebook, Google apps and other web-based tools—of course, providing digital literacy and technology tips along the way.

What I love about this example is that it also shows how information professionals can use digital literacy training to become digital mentors in a more robust sense. By delivering programming online, you end up interacting with young patrons through the very digital channels that they need to use responsibly. (And ok, Vine is no longer among them, but just substitute Instagram if you’re getting hung up on that detail.)

Once you’re engaging with patrons online, as well as face-to-face, you have the opportunity to model responsible online interaction, and offer your young patrons a window on what it means to live well online. Too many young people from all walks of life only see the online behavior of their peers, and class or cultural barriers may further narrow youth exposure to engaging examples of meaningful online participation. As a parent, I would love my tween and teen to model their social media engagement on my Facebook usage (well, maybe not my usage—I’m a bit compulsive), but even I have to admit that a young, tech-savvy librarian or media trainer is a much more appealing model than boring old Mom.

Role modelling works at both the individual and institutional level. I would love to see kids friending and imprinting on hip young media activists and librarians—please, someone launch a Have You Friended a Librarian Today? campaign! But not every information professional wants to connect with a bunch of teens on social media, and even if they did, there aren’t enough of them to go around.

Digital Mentoring at the Institutional Level

This is why it’s so crucial to see that modelling operate at an institutional level. Make sure that all the online interactions your institution has with its patrons —and especially, those patrons under 18—encourage the kinds of habits people should practice in all their online activities. It can be tempting to think that since we’re on the side of the angels, community institutions can play a little fast and loose with personal information. But a library is actually the last institution that should be sending out spammy bulk emails, or aggregating user data based on borrowing habits:  that’s just cuing patrons (including your youngest patrons) that we don’t regard personal information as sacrosanct. If we’re trying to mentor young tech users, we need to teach them to respect their own privacy, and to be suspicious of any institution that doesn’t take that privacy very seriously indeed.

Engagement with young patrons must ultimately be guided more by e pluribus unum than by in loco parentis.

A more tricky issue for role modelling concerns the role of libraries in limiting or moderating what young people access. Many libraries use internet filtering software to prevent patrons from accessing inappropriate content through their facilities. And at first, this might seem like an extension of the mentoring role: after all, many parents (myself included) use internet filters to manage their kids’ internet access. But Junichi P. Semitsu’s thoughtful article, “Burning Cyberbooks in Public Libraries: Internet Filtering Software vs. The First Amendment,” establishes a useful distinction between the kind of guidance a parent can provide, and what a library (or other public institution) can undertake:

A library’s policy should continue to reflect the idea that the fundamental responsibility to protect minors from harmful materials should rest with parents, not local librarians. Just as parents have been responsible for ensuring that their children do not look at sex education books in the adult section, parents must also be responsible for ensuring that children do not learn their sex education from www.hardcoresex.com. Libraries should assist parents by offering self-enforcing tools like optional filters. However, they should maintain their tradition of staying out of the business of censorship.

Semitsu’s distinction speaks to the tricky line information professionals need to walk when they take on the mantle of digital mentorship. On the one hand, young people benefit from mentoring that includes limit-setting as well as tech empowerment—that’s exactly why mentor parents often dole out screen time limits along with tech lessons. On the other, young people who encounter mentors at their local library or media centre are also experiencing their first points of contact with public institutions and media; in this respect, information professionals have a unique role in teaching young people what they can and should expect as online citizens. That means their engagement with young patrons must ultimately be guided more by e pluribus unum than by in loco parentis.

If information professionals play a profound role in transmitting what young digital citizens should expect, as well as in teaching them how they can participate and contribute, that mentorship role need not be limited to online interactions or digital trainings. It’s important to note that information professionals transmit cultural norms around information access and privacy—both essential issues for young tech users—in their offline activities, too. In their article on the privacy implications of libraries shifting to self-service holds, Stevens et al. note that:

When books are kept on self-service hold shelves in such a way that anyone who chooses to peruse the hold shelves (including someone who may simply be looking for a requested item) can match the title of the book with the name of the person who requested the book, there is a disclosure of private information relating to a patron. It is the equivalent of leaving copies of patrons’ circulation records in the open where anyone can view them.

This case beautifully demonstrates both the power and the peril of taking on the role of digital mentorship as an information professional. Everything a librarian, archivist, or community media trainer does is part of what they are teaching to the young people who tap into their lessons or services. That means that information professionals need to be exceptionally aware of what they are modelling, not only when they are thinking actively about mentorship, but when they are going about very aspect of their jobs (or even their after-hours online lives, if they’re connecting to young patrons).

And yet, that broad reach also makes them uniquely suited to the job of digital mentorship. As Glynda A. Hull notes in “At Last: Youth Culture and Digital Media: New Literacies for New Times,”

Given the pressure to teach to state-mandated content standards and to test students’ academic achievement defined as meeting those standards, and given the way in which such activities are tied to federal and state funding, teachers and schools are now very hard pressed to find space and time to think expansively about the interface of literacy, youth culture, multi-media, and identity.

That’s exactly why we need information professionals to take on the work of digital mentorship when teachers or parents are unable—or unwilling—to do it. The institutional roles, digital skills, and community mandate of information professionals mean they’re often the ideal people to fill in the gaps between what kids are learning from their schools and parents, and what they’re teaching one another. Thanks to the MI-5, I have high hopes that the next generation of information professionals will step up to do just that.

Source: JSTOR Daily

CBC News: Autism Library Helps Children Experience Public Places

Autism library helps children experience public places
Wanita Ryan and her daughter Cloe attend the library to be with kids and families who share their experience
By Christine Coulter
November 14, 2017

Wanita Ryan is thankful she has a place to bring her ten year old daughter Cloe to experience public spaces in a place where there are other children with autism.

Autism B.C. Lending Library in Richmond has been open for about a month and Ryan and her daughter have been attending ever since.

"It's great for her to interact with children that are like her and other parents who understand," Ryan said.

"Everybody is friendly and on the same playing field."

In addition to being autistic, Cloe also has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Ryan says it can be hard for Cloe to be around other children in public places.

"When you get the staring looks and other kids not understanding why your child behaves that way. They just think your kid's odd or something," she said.

Stigma-free zone

Every aspect of the library and the building was designed with autistic people in mind according to librarian, Sabrina Gurniak.

"This is a space that's specifically for people who might have more barriers to entry in regular public spaces."

The lights are slightly less fluorescent to help those who may suffer from sensory processing issues and there are tools to help children who may not communicate verbally.

"Even something as simple as a bunch of people in a room chattering can be too much for someone on the spectrum," Gurniak said.

If a child does want to escape a situation that may be loud or uncomfortable for them there are special chairs that fold up and give them privacy to calm down.

"We call the building and the library a stigma-free zone. So it's the kind of thing if someone's having a hard time and upset at something … you're not going to get stares, you're not going to get people asking if everything is ok because we know that it happens"

With files from The Early Edition and Vivian Luk


Source: CBC.ca

American Libraries: New Findings for Every Child Ready to Read in Public Libraries

An interview with lead researcher Susan B. Neuman about the initiative and evaluation

By Terra Dankowski
November 17, 2017

 

 Susan B. Neuman, professor of childhood education and literacy development at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University.

How is the second iteration of the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) initiative being applied and approached in public libraries? What role do library staffers have in modeling and communicating early-literacy best practices to parents and caregivers? Answers to these questions, among other findings, were released November 17 in a report, Bringing Literacy Home: An Evaluation of the Every Child Ready to Read Program.

The report is a joint effort of the Association for Library Service to Children and the Public Library Association, and was compiled by lead researcher Susan B. Neuman, professor of childhood education and literacy development at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University, along with coauthors Naomi Moland, professorial lecturer at American University in Washington, D.C., and Donna Celano, assistant professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

American Libraries spoke to Neuman about the roles and challenges of librarians and caregivers in making sure every child is ready to read.

This research on the ECRR initiative in public libraries has been three years in the making. What are some of the key findings?

We’re finding that there is a transition among many libraries, moving from just focusing on children and storytimes to a broader view of parent engagement. We see that there are many opportunities for parents to actively engage with children instead of just standing back and watching.
There are also what we call “asides” during story-hour activities, where librarians are giving parents tips on how to interact with their child at home, or some developmental strategies so they can better understand the emergence of literacy and what they can do to support it.


What was your sample? What did you focus on for this evaluation?

The first year, we were trying to understand more broadly what the initiative might look like. We examined 10 library systems [using ECRR] across the United States; within that, we looked at three libraries within each system. We were trying to find: “What are the various aspects of the Every Child Ready to Read initiative? How does it affect programming? How does it affect what the librarian is likely to do? How does it affect the spaces and places that libraries set up to enable children and families to stay and almost see it as a destination place?”

The second and third years, we broadened our reach to a total of 60 libraries, some of which had adopted the ECRR initiative, many others which were in contiguous areas nearby but had not officially adopted the initiative. What we were looking for were similarities and differences across those settings. What we found is, in many [ECRR] libraries, spaces have changed. They’re almost like social playgrounds for literacy development. There are play objects that the children can engage with while learning. There are computers so parents can sit side by side with their children and encourage coparticipation around the technology. Parents and children can enjoy educational media and then find a book related to that media. The definition of literacy has broadened to include other media as well, and [the library] has become more of a place where you enjoy time together.

Does your research have examples of what libraries or caregivers are doing when there may be barriers to early literacy, such as access, inequality, or English-language issues?

It’s always a struggle, but many libraries are reaching out in vital ways. It’s not only what they do in the library, it’s what they do outside the libraries, and the critical connections they’ve made. Take a high-poverty area where people are reluctant to go to a library or go out, period. They feel, “Oh my goodness, I have library fines,” or something like that. Many librarians go to outreach centers and work in communities themselves, to make these [places] much more resource-available.

What are some of the early-literacy programs and behaviors that libraries and librarians are modeling besides storytimes?

If you go to [an ECRR] library you’re likely to see many, many programs. Some for parents who cannot get their kids into kindergarten, for various reasons. [Programs] for homeschooling or English-language learners. There are so many programs that are connecting children and their families to literacy, it’s incredible. All of those are often organized by one or two people.

We’re seeing that [libraries are] providing community centers for parents to talk to one another, which is important in high-poverty areas where they often feel isolated. We’re also seeing that many of our libraries are getting involved in state-related activities and early-literacy councils, so they’re becoming critical partners working on early-literacy activities.

Public librarians are taking on greater roles as educators and early-childhood specialists. What kind of resources or professional development are they getting to act as these conduits and practitioners?

There’s a whole host of professional development models that our libraries are using. Some [staffers] have gone to workshops, where they learn about the different aspects of early-literacy development. Or there’s a train-the-trainer model, where someone trains one person and then they train a bunch of other people. We see a lot of different configurations [that lead to] parent involvement.

How do you anticipate libraries and stakeholders using the research and the information in this report? Do you expect it to guide other libraries in their early-literacy initiatives?

I imagine that their efforts are only going to grow and develop. I think that one of the things they will need to be careful of is how much they can do with existing resources. They might become stretched in so many areas in the community, which is great, but at what cost eventually?

Just to give you an idea, many of [the ECRR libraries] serve lunch and dinner during the summer and at various times. This is all coming out of the librarian’s job. You look at that, in addition to the homework help and all the other stuff that they’re doing in these communities, and you say, “When are people going to realize that we need to put more resources into our libraries if we have such high expectations for them?” The community loves the libraries, but they need more resources to get the job done.

TERRA DANKOWSKI is an associate editor for American Libraries.

 Source: American Libraries

Toronto Star: Toronto library’s popular free Museum and Arts Pass program loses funding

At the end of 2018, Sun Life Financial will cut off funding for the program, which provides access to otherwise expensive museums and attractions.

By May Warren
Nov. 16, 2017

The Toronto Public Library's Museum and Arts Pass offers free admission to museums and attractions like the ROM. The library program's sponsor, Sun Life Financial, says it'll pull funding after 2018.  (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star file photo)  

Sun Life Financial has pulled funding for a popular Toronto Public Library program that offers free passes for museums and attractions like the ROM, Toronto Zoo and Ontario Science Centre, leaving its future uncertain.

The 10-year-old Museum and Arts Pass (MAP) initiative gives people with library cards access to passes for up to two adults and five kids that can be borrowed at any of the library branches.
Sun Life provided about $200,000 a year but decided to cancel that money because the program didn’t align with its re-evaluated priorities, said Paul Joliat, assistant vice-president of philanthropy and sponsorships.

“While the MAP program is a fantastic initiative, it doesn’t quite fit our refined criteria,” Joliat said. “These dollars are going to be reinvested within the arts and culture community across this country.”
The contract for funding is up at the end of the year, but Joliat said the company will continue providing it through the end of 2018 so the library is not left “high and dry.” He added that Sun Life will continue to fund the Toronto Public Library’s musical instrument lending program.

Despite losing the funding, Toronto Public Library spokesperson Ana-Maria Critchley remains optimistic.

“It’s a really successful program,” she said, noting that more than 1.5 million people have visited 17 cultural institutions they might not otherwise be able to afford.

“We’re very confident that we’re going to able to find another sponsor.”

Source: Toronto Star 
 

Twistedsifter.com: Incredible ‘Ocean of Books’ Library Opens in China with Space for 1.2m Titles

Nov 13, 2017

    

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

Incredible ‘Ocean of Books’ Library Opens in China with Space for 1.2m Titles
MVRDV in collaboration with local architects TUPDI has completed the Tianjin Binhai Library, a 33,700m2 (362,744 sq ft) cultural centre featuring a luminous spherical auditorium around which floor-to-ceiling bookcases cascade. The undulating bookshelf is the building’s main spatial device, and is used both to frame the space and to create stairs, seating, the layered ceiling and even louvres on the façade. Tianjin Binhai Library was designed and built in a record-breaking time of only three years due to a tight schedule imposed by the local municipality. Next to many media rooms it offers space for 1.2 million books. [source]

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

The library was commissioned by Tianjin Binhai Municipality and is located in the cultural centre of Binhai district in Tianjin, a coastal metropolis outside Beijing, China. The library, located adjacent to a park, is one of a cluster of five cultural buildings designed by an international cadre of architects including Bernard Tschumi Architects, Bing Thom Architects, HH Design and MVRDV. All buildings are connected by a public corridor underneath a glass canopy designed by GMP. Within the GMP masterplan MVRDV was given a strict volume within which all design was concentrated. [source]

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

The building’s mass extrudes upwards from the site and is ‘punctured’ by a spherical auditorium in the centre. Bookshelves are arrayed on either side of the sphere and act as everything from stairs to seating, even continuing along the ceiling to create an illuminated topography. These contours also continue along the two full glass facades that connect the library to the park outside and the public corridor inside, serving as louvres to protect the interior against excessive sunlight whilst also creating a bright and evenly lit interior. [source]

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

“The Tianjin Binhai Library interior is almost cave-like, a continuous bookshelf. Not being able to touch the building’s volume we ‘rolled’ the ball shaped auditorium demanded by the brief into the building and the building simply made space for it, as a ‘hug’ between media and knowledge” says Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV. “We opened the building by creating a beautiful public space inside; a new urban living room is its centre. The bookshelves are great spaces to sit and at the same time allow for access to the upper floors. The angles and curves are meant to stimulate different uses of the space, such as reading, walking, meeting and discussing. Together they form the ‘eye’ of the building: to see and be seen.” [source]

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

The five level building also contains extensive educational facilities, arrayed along the edges of the interior and accessible through the main atrium space. Public program is supported by subterranean service spaces, book storage, and a large archive. From the ground floor visitors can easily access reading areas for children and the elderly, the auditorium, the main entrance, terraced access to the floors above and connection to the cultural complex.

The first and second floors consist primarily of reading rooms, books and lounge areas whilst the upper floors also include meeting rooms, offices, computer and audio rooms and two roof top patios. [source]

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

The library is MVRDV’s most rapid fast track project to date. It took just three years from the first sketch to the opening. Due to the given completion date site excavation immediately followed the design phase. The tight construction schedule forced one essential part of the concept to be dropped: access to the upper bookshelves from rooms placed behind the atrium. This change was made locally and against MVRDV’s advice and rendered access to the upper shelves currently impossible. The full vision for the library may be realised in the future, but until then perforated aluminium plates printed to represent books on the upper shelves. Cleaning is done via ropes and movable scaffolding. [source]

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

Tianjin Binhai Library was built according to the Chinese Green Star energy efficiency label and has achieved two star status. MVRDV collaborated with Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI), structural engineers Sanjiang Steel Structure Design, TADI interior architects and Huayi Jianyuan lighting design. It is the second realised MVRDV project in Tianjin following TEDA Urban Fabric, completed in 2009. [source]

 Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

Design by MVRDV

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

Source: twistedsifter.com