The essential question?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 05:06AM Form follows function.
- Louis Sullivan
ISB student "using" the library, May 13, 2009
The question our team was to help answer was supposed to be: How can the MS/HS library program and facilities be improved to support student learning and achieve the ISB Vision for Learning?
But somehow it changed in a meeting with school officials this afternoon to: Does a school need a library when information can be accessed from the classroom using Internet connected laptops?
The new question is uncomfortable, messy, and incredibly important and not restricted by any means to one particular school. It is one to which all library people need a clear and compelling answer.
I've been addressing this question in articles since, well, for a long time, including:
- Why do we need libraries when we have the Internet? Knowledge Quest, Vol #27 no. 1 (1998)
- Are Libraries (and Librarians) Heading Toward Extinction? Teacher-Librarian, Dec 2003
- Letter from the Flat World Library Corporation, LMC, March 2006
- The Importance of Bricks, LMC, August/September 2006
Do you have a good response? What part does a facility play in a ubiquitous information environment? How does the librarian's role change? How do we assess our impact if physical visits become less frequent?
Your answers?
Reader Comments (51)
It is difficult to predict the existence of public or educational libraries. We don't even know what the Internet will look like in the next decade. We are already purchasing data of informational value now instead of books, and this will only increase as people create ways to make money using the Internet. So libraries will still be the place to go for free access to information.
I have opted to use my library space in creative ways. It is now the social, learning, and meeting hub of the school.
First, thanks for all the thoughtful comments. I was surprised by the number of reactions to this post. Obviously the question is important to many of us.
If you don't get a response from me, it is because you haven't left an email address. I DO read all comments however.
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Hi Jethro,
I suspect eventually the book will be an electronic experience for most readers. But it is not now and it may be awhile before it is practical both from a technical and intellectual property standpoint.
Thanks for the comment,
Doug
Hi Ken,
I am hoping libraries will be seen as "social learning" spaces opposed to simply "social gathering places." When schools don't provide the second, libraries often take up the role. Not sure whether this is good or bad.
Doug
Hi David,
Always a pleasure to see your name on a comment!
I agree with all your statements below. I believe the best analogy I've heard for a long time about libraries is that we need to stop being information grocery stores and start being information kitchens. Production, not consumption, of information and knowledge will be the consummate skill needed by our kids.
All the best,
Doug
Hi Jeanne,
I appreciate your comment. Are too many libraries still passive places? Is this is why they are constantly threatened? And how do go about changing that?
All the best,
Doug
HI Linda,
Don't be giving people dangerous ideas! ;-)
Doug
Dianne,
Why aren't all libraries like yours? If they were, I don't think we'd be having this conversation!
All the best,
Doug
Hi Rob,
The image I chose certainly did not illustrate all the great things happening in the ISB Main library. I probably should have had a half dozen pictures with kids working alone, with a teacher, in small groups and as a whole class.
Everything you write about the kinds of spaces kids need is absolutely true. I'm hoping you'll get a new space that allows this to happen at an even expanded level.
All the best,
Doug
Hi David,
I know you've written a lot on this topic. Who do you think I steal all my good ideas from? ;-)
I think the question is not "how does technology impact student achievement?" but "how does technology support best practices that impact student achievement?"
If the second question is valid, then I would point you to Mr. Lances studies that show technology is a critical part of an effective school library program and that an effective school libraries do indeed impact student learning.
Good see the comment,
Doug
Geo,
Were all libraries like yours, the question wouldn't ever come up. We need more programs like yours and people like you!
Doug
Hi Floyd,
And what makes your example tragic is all the research by Krashen and others showing how voluntary free reading which libraries really support does improve student reading ability!
Doug
Hi Carolyn,
The Wikinomics quote resonates with me as well. (You might see it again some of my writing!)
As I replied to another comment, I am struggling with the notion that there is a difference between a "socialization" place and "social learning" place. Do we encourage both in are libraries or just the second? Or maybe there is no clear distinction.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Doug
L. Hardin,
It's an interesting question where the drive for a school-wide IL curriculum you suggest should originate. I suppose "aggressive" is an apt word, but something about sort of bothers me. But basically, I agree with all you stated.
Thanks for the perspective,
Doug
The question above has been asked to me many many times, already since the end of the nineties. I've always responded with 'this depends on how you define a school library'. For me, a school library is not a place but a function in education. It is 'not about a library in the school, but about schooling in the library'. The physical and virtual part of the school library are two components of the same world. Youngsters do not make any choices beforehand: they like the virtual world of communities and places where they can share videos, photos and thoughts as well as going to the cinema, the sports club, the cafe or the (school) library to meet, to discuss and to play or relax.
Pupils and students need and like the help of school librarians, so let's stick out and avocate the (new) school library function.
Kind regards,
Lourense
Our Peter Macinnis wrote a post for The Hub last year re the need for non-fiction books. It is worth reading and you will see that he has given blanket permission (in the first comment) for others to use it.
http://hubinfo.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/non-fiction-who-needs-it/
Hi Ninja,
The analogy of moving the library from information grocery store to information kitchen really resonates with me. (Seems like this might have originated with Joyce Valenza or a panel she spoke on.)
Thanks for the comment,
Doug
HI Brian,
As a reader myself, thanks in part to libraries, I identify with your comments. I think what will make this function in libraries interesting and a little scary is what will happen when Kindle-like devices become practical and books are stored on servers rather than shelves.
Thanks for the observation,
Doug
Hi Anne-Marie,
Hey, I got my library grad degree in the 70s and was taught the same thing you were. So what have too many librarians been doing for the last 30 years?
I wish more of our profession had your philosophy. A too narrowly defined role may well doom us!
Great ideas. Thank you for sharing them.
Doug
Hi Beverly,
I like "library lab." I used to jokingly call my library the "intellectual gymnasium."
Doug
Hi Mary Jane,
Thanks for asking some of these hard questions. Everyone in our profession should do so on a regular basis.
My only quibble with your statement is that high school libraries must be a resource for practical skills, as well as scholarly ones. How do we serve the kids who may not go to college but into technical careers. I'd argue that these folks may need to be even more adept at self-teaching than our college-bound.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments,
Doug
Hi Judy,
Good point. Thanks for bringing it up. I also think we are one of the few professionals in the building that have a whole-school view and mindset.
Thanks for the comment,
Doug
Hi Z,
Your comment made me wonder if the reason good research skills are undervalued by administrators and parents is that they themselves do not posses them? Do humans value abilities in others that they themselves do not posses?
All the best,
Doug
HI Lillian,
I think your ideas about being the social, learning and meeting hub of the school are great!
Doug
Hi Lourense,
I agree with all you've said.
Unfortunately some kids do not come to the library, in fact avoid it, because of the librarian.
Thankfully that is not the case with any Blue Skunk readers!
Thanks for comment,
Doug
HI Cathy,
I enjoyed this quote from Peter's Hub article to which you kindly provided the link:
"Sensible folk can see good things coming with the web and new media, but the more subtle among us wish to see an orderly progression, so that if wondrous new media emerge, they can sit alongside the old media, and replace them gradually. It is too soon to march in and throw out."
Very sensible, indeed.
Doug
@Doug, thanks for the reply and very timely as I was in the middle of a Column for a professional magazine about self-assessment for (school)librarians. Together with professional development this could do the trick. But I'm afraid not all colleagues see it that way. The only thing we can do is keep on promoting prof. development and assessment.
Regards, Lourense
Doug,
You are right as always. I did a search on "kitchen metaphor" on Joyce's blog and came up with this: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/90032209.html?q=kitchen+metaphor
So apparently this metaphor idea is original to her. I also like the "Kinko's for Kids" idea David Warlick had.
Thanks,
teacherninja
The idea that the Internet can replace the function of a school library carries the implication that the library is only good for, or used for, non-fiction or reference materials. That it's where you go when you have a project. It completely ignores the fiction. Only one person has mentioned that here, yet I think it's extremely important and where a lot of the strongest arguments are.
Reading fiction, whether for pleasure or for literary analysis, not only broadens vocabulary and improves spelling and grammar, but it dramatically broadens the imagination. Those who visualize when they read - who can empathize with the characters - become more empathetic in real life. Reading for pleasure reduces stress, it slows you down and your brain waves change and resemble those of a person doing yoga. We need to make better arguments for the role that libraries can provide in reading fiction, because the Internet is not a direct competitor there.
Others have stated arguments about the role of the library as communal space and as research and instruction lab, more eloquently than I can, so I'll leave those alone. But I agree with much of what has been said here.
If there were computers in the classrooms for researching projects, it would become up to the teachers to instill the students' ability to assess sources, to learn how to do effective searches, etc. That's not the worst thing, although it both assumes that teachers instinctively know these skills and that they have the time to take one yet another role or subject.
The reality, though, is that enough studies have been done that we can confidently say that there is a strong correlation between student performance on tests and how long the library is open after school. The Boards love their stats, and love their test scores, so we need to tie those in to the library and connect the dots for them. School library = higher performance.
A list of the various School Library Impact Studies across the United States and Canada can be found here: http://www.lrs.org/impact.php
It's been said before and will continue to be said: The internet is only great when one knows how to use it. And who is the best person to teach that? Someone with a degree in Library and Information Sciences aka a librarian. As a teacher, I know that I didn't learn the ins and outs of teaching a student good research techniques until I earned my Master's in LIS. The Big 6 - education majors aren't taught that. Librarians are. Libraries and librarians are needed to help students take the big scary World Wide Web and turn it into research they can use.
In today’s electronic environment and damaged economy, the value of libraries per se is going to be questioned right along with questions about whether you can defend continuing to spend money on print as opposed to electronic resources. While the questions are valid, it too often seems that the one asking already has an answer – and the questions really are little more than disguised assaults on you and your program:
If that is, indeed, the case, then it seems to me that librarians need to respond vigorously, even aggressively. It’s not enough to say, “Well, you’re wrong” – or even to say “Well, you’re wrong and here’s why.” A passive response feeds into their stereotypical images of libraries and librarians. Display your expertise - politely and respectfully, but also relentlessly and mercilessly. Remember what Shakespeare had Richard III say about himself: “I can smile – and I can murder while I smile.” Bombard your adversaries with fact and demand that they respond with the same.
Never accept opinion without evidence, especially if you are challenged in public. Make your statement and then close with a question back to them. Don’t defend your library; make them defend the Internet. Put your antagonists on the defensive and make them think twice about ever attacking you again, especially in any kind of public forum.
You already know the standard and valid arguments regarding library value (if you need more or a refresher, I’m sure the ALA, the AASL, and the IASL will be happy to offer them to you), so there is no need to recite those here – especially the arguments regarding the untrustworthiness of so many Internet “sources”. Instead, let me add two other ideas that may be helpful. One has to do with the nature of copyright and the other with the nature of electronic materials.
First, copyright. A common line of attack is to characterize print materials as a thing of the past. Challenge this immediately. Ask what evidence they have that print is in decline -- then turn on them when they can’t produce it. Tell them that print isn’t dead, dying, or even ill. Even with the economic down turn, book sales in the United States stood at $24.3 in 2008. British publishers reported that 236.9 million books were sold last year in the UK at a total value of £1.773 billion. You can argue the new Kindle as a variation on print delivery, bringing books in a more convenient and portable form perhaps, but still bringing books. And that brings us to the copyright argument for libraries.
Ask library critics and Internet advocates outright what they know about copyright. It’s not likely to be much. Their ignorance is one of the main forces undercutting their Internet supremacy theory. Hitting at this is a useful approach in validating library value. You can use some of the fascinating arguments advanced by Thomas Mann at the Library of Congress to build a thought provoking case (“The Importance of Books, Free Access, and Libraries as Places and the Dangerous Inadequacy of the of the Information Science Paradigm,” Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 27, no. 4, July 2001, pp. 268-281). It is naïve, he says, to think that intellectual property laws are going to disappear or that human nature will outgrow the profit motive in the next century. If a profit is to be derived from copyrighted materials on the Internet, providers must limit who has access. Copyright restrictions mean that free access to everything produced probably will never come to the Internet. Libraries, on the other hand, freely make copyrighted material available in their print resources and can make copyrighted electronic materials available through their digital collections and database subscriptions.
Second, the nature of electronic resources even when they are trustworthy. Mann makes a powerful point that speaks to our educational goals. Exclusive use of electronic sources, he says, actually may undercut students’ ability to understand lengthy works. “Doing keyword searches … for particular passages is simply not the same as the much more important work of actually reading and absorbing their intellectual content as connected wholes.” Today’s students, you can argue as he does, certainly are comfortable with computers, but that’s not the same as saying that they’re comfortable reading and absorbing long works on a screen. The majority of the time, Mann argues, youngsters interact with screen displays that don’t require long attention spans and require less rather than more verbal interpretative skills. Because we want students to move from simple information access skills to knowledge development and application to understanding to wisdom, technology that fosters short attention spans is both dangerous and counterproductive. “Here is the important point,” Mann contends, “and there is no getting around it: If the higher levels of knowledge and understanding are going to be grasped, they require greater attention spans than do the lower levels of data and information.”
This tends toward a conclusion that libraries are vital to both education and the national intellectual life. Again, there isn’t room here to list the research studies that demonstrate the value of a balanced collection, and particularly the value of print materials – but you can easily find them through your own or a nearby university library’s subscription databases, and in back issues of publications like Library Media Connection, School Library Journal, Teacher-Librarian, and Emergency Librarian.
Be careful, though. These publications carry articles that are mixes of opinion and experience description, along with some articles that are research-based. While these are valuable for practice, they’re considerably less valuable for argumentation. It’s important that you separate research from opinion. You want to challenge your critics with factual evidence, not with another librarian’s opinion.
The research-based articles in these publications will have bibliographies that will lead you back to the original research reports. Track down those reports and use them in crafting your arguments. Of course, you’ll need to find more and different, but these bibliographies provide a running start. Once you’re familiar with the kinds of research journals that carry articles on topics likely to become contentious in your school or district, you can launch your search directly into those print and on-line publications.
Do your homework in advance. Put a list of supportive research article citations in your pocket calendar, PDA, Blackberry, or other device so they’re always handy. But also memorize at least a half-dozen so you can speak without hesitation. When you’re done, turn and ask your critics to cite specific evidence of electronic superiority, especially Internet superiority, in fostering student achievement. They won’t be able to do it.
Librarians are the "integrators" of knowledge - a librarian today MUST be technically literate, but must also be able to discern what is and is not valuable on-line. Library/Librarian = Literacy! Unfortunately, this mandate is usually forgotten by school districts in the mad dash to save $$$. Horse-apples! Librarians are trained in how to disseminate information & discriminate between sources of information. As we are all aware, there is a much higher portion of weeds than wheat on-line. And while individual teachers can discriminate within their own field of qualifications - it becomes more difficult to "partner" info from outside their teachables - this is where the role of the librarian is critical. The librarian builds bridges, helps the students to discriminate between sources and to refine their research skills. It buds in elementary school, begins to bloom in jr. high & bears fruit in secondary school. Then, in university, the full benefits of having had the assistance of a librarian through the early school years is evidenced by the knowledge and abilities of the student to come to terms with the university curriculum. Anyone who feels that the role of a trained librarian can be fulfilled by a tech or by plugging in another teacher with no library training, frankly is short-sighted and out of touch with reality. And finally, just a Part I Library AQ isn't enough - the school librarian SHOULD be as fully qualified as a Public Librarian or a University Librarian, but at the very least should have her/his Specialist in Library. Schools have to stop putting someone "into the library because that is where they will do the least damage". That is the worst possible reason to have a librarian. I equate that rationale with putting only a tech in charge (unless that tech is a retired teacher or a retired librarian without teaching certification).
Wow, we are struggling to get a few laptops for teachers to use during the day, let alone for pupils. We have 5 laptops that teachers have to share in a school of 1300 pupils and they have to book in advance to have a laptop for a specific period of a specific day......We can only dream of this in South Africa..
Thanks for a though provoking article. I am going to send my summer school-library grad school students to this article and have them comment. Coincidentally, a teacher in my building asked his fourth grade students to write a blog about what they would do to change our school library if they had the chance. I intend to compile their answers and write a response in my own blog this weekend. It is my opinion that librarians are PARTICULARLY needed at the elementary level. Who else is going to teach them that everything they read online is not true? That the top hit in a Google search is not necessarily the best one? That researching can actually be a fun experience? That they can have an online voice in a safe way? Not to mention point them to some great books!
For research and reference, most subjects can be studied on line. For fiction, my school library is essential. All books are due in four days, and students are still clamoring to check things out. There is still a place for print literature in schools where reading it is encouraged and valued.
Hi B. Janicek,
You make a great case. How do you reply to those who suggest classroom libraries better serve kids that a library that serves the whole school?
Doug
Thanks, Shanie. Now to get school decision-makers believing this!
Thanks for commenting,
Doug
Hi Karen,
Hearing from you helps many of us put our own situations into perspective. It seems the more we have, the more we want and feel deprived unless we get everything,
Most of us in the US are truly fortunate compared to many places in the world.
Thanks so much for writing,
Doug
Hi Karen,
Do send me a link to your blog post!
Thanks,
Doug
HI Ms Yingling,
I certainly agree, but advocates of classroom libraries may not! I think your last sentence says it all - there is a place for libraries "in schools where reading is encouraged!"
All the best and thanks for commenting,
Doug
We are in the planning stages of a new school where 3 schools will be rolled into one. There is no intention of building a library!! I see this placing students' literacy skills at risk and I agree with a former blogger when we realise that much on the net is not peer assessed. I would be most interested to hear from people who could give ideas on how to argue that we need a library, not just as a respositiry of books (their answer to that is at the back of classrooms) but as a centre of learning, or exchanging information, as the intellectual hub of the new school.
Hi Richard,
Surprised to hear this is happening in Oz as well - a bastion of good libraries in my experience.
I hope you read the previous responses to this post. Some great reasons given for the importance of a library.
Cheers,
Doug
Thank you for articulating "the essential question." I've been mulling over my response; an exchange on my local school library system finally pushed me to write a blog posting. If we, as library professionals, don't work towards a solution to this library/technology disconnect, we are resigning ourselves to playing a secondary role or becoming totally irrelevant in modern education.
Thanks, Diane. I enjoyed your blog post. Nice job of synthesizing multiple conversations all going on around the topic.
All the best,
Doug