Why your library's digital resources go unused and a golden opportunity

While digital resources are a growing part of many if not most school library collections, the amount of use they get is often disappointing. At least in the districts in which I have worked. Most products have a some sort of usage meter so it's pretty easy to determine how often they are accessed.

Why does this seem to be the case even after almost 30 years of availability? (Anyone else remember the Groliers on a stand alone workstation in the late '80s?) A few reasons come to mind...

1. Out of sight, out of mind. Unlike print materials that are easily visible to anyone walking into the library, the digital resources are hidden - too often deep with the library's website, which is hidden deep within the school website.
2. Difficult to promote. Those lively new picture books or high interest non-fiction titles are easy to showcase in displays. While it's possible to show digital materials on library monitors, it simply feels like more work.
3. Low comfort level by staff. Many adults still do know about nor feel comfortable using digital resources. How many teachers in your school still require "at least one print reference" in their research assignments? Digital = dubious quality still in many an educator's mind.
4. Inadequate access to technology. You don't need a device to use print. But e-books and databases require both hardware and an Internet connection (and often a password). If your school is student device poor and you have a high percentage of kids without home Internet access, this is a big, big deal.
5. Free, popular digital options. Hey, why go to all the trouble of logging into World Book or Britannica when Wikipedia just sort of pops up in Google Search? Why log in to Discovery Streaming when there's YouTube? Yes, we information professionals know why, but do your staff and students care?
6. Slow change in assessments. Your state still require kids know how to use guide words in a print dictionary? 'Nuff, said.
7. Generic, not targeted. Good print collections are built around curricular needs. Is this currently the case when you are selecting digital materials as well?

Our district's library media specialists met last week and we talked a lot about how to purposely build our collection of electronic resources to meet specific course needs. We may not be able to do a lot about the first six challenges in the list above, but we can make a conscientious effort to target the curation of all our resources, print and digital, to meet content standards and course requirements.

The growing use of our learning management system, Schoology, makes this an opportune time to work with teachers to select content-specific digital resources. The LMS, after all, it more or less a container, and containers need content.

Feels like a golden opportunity to build relevance and relationships.

Publisher pulls book. Should your school?

I learned about Scholastic’s new children’s book, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, when a friend emailed me on Friday to ask, “Uh … have you seen this [expletive]?” Her note was accompanied by the book’s back cover, which depicted an illustration of a smiling enslaved man and child, accompanied by their beaming master—America’s first president, George Washington. Washington had his arm around the enslaved man’s shoulder like they were bros instead of oppressor and oppressed. 

My knee-jerk reaction was a string of expletives as I tried to process this level of disrespect. Can you imagine a modern-day American publisher pushing a book about a cheery Jewish father and daughter on a trivial mission to bake a cake for the birthday of, say, an SS guard at Auschwitz? Can you picture a children’s book depicting a Jewish dad and child at a concentration camp snuggled up and cozy with Hitler?

Never! So why is it somehow OK to show enslaved black folks practically cuddling with their oppressors?

D'Oyley, Demetria Lucas. After Outrage Publisher Pulls Happy Slaves Children's Book The Root, January 17, 2016

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In crafting the narrative for this book, culinary historian and Washington scholar, Ramin Ganeshram, took great care in contextualizing Hercules and Delia as enslaved people, while at the same time accurately depicting Hercules as the notable figure he was.  In her extensive author’s note, Ramin clearly and carefully addresses the cruel injustice of slavery, as well as the vicious complexity of slavery that George Washington himself faced.  In the book, Ramin notes that George Washington understood that it was evil to own fellow human beings, and that he was very conflicted about his part in the wicked institution known as slavery. Slavery’s injustice is also cited on the book’s front flap, so that any parent or teacher will know that this is an aspect of the story, and that it is to be addressed.

Pinkney, Andrea Davis*. A proud slice of history On Our Minds (Scholastic blog), January 6, 2016

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In Monday's blog post, I wrote that our schools should be producing thinkers, not believers.  The controversy and multiple points of view surrounding the publication and subsequent withdrawal by Scholastic of A Birthday Cake for George Washington is a case-in-point argument for this approach to education and why all educators, not just librarians, should be staunch proponents of intellectual freedom for both children and adults.

No book, no idea, no resource should be unilaterally withdrawn from a public school because it offends a single individual or group. I cannot defend A Birthday Cake but what I will defend is any material's right to due process before it is withdrawn from a school. (See Don't Defend That Book.) And as an educator, I believe materials like this should be the catalyst for "teachable moments," with students being asked to consider important questions about slavery, historical context**, the source of happiness, and the ability for an individual to excel under difficult conditions.

A concern was raised in my district about our teachers' ability to have such conversations. Is the rank-and-file teacher sufficiently culturally proficient to hold meaningful discussions on topics like this? It is a valid concern. Quite honestly, I don't know that my own level of CP is (or perhaps ever will be) high enough to be able to fully consider all the issues and understandings a book like A Birthday Cake raises.

But I ask myself does my personal imperfection - or any teacher's - justify not discussing controversial issues and asking students to consider multiple perspectives related to them? Asking students to think, not to believe.

While it may not rise to the level of seriousness of cultural proficiency, were we to not give educators computers until they were all "technologically" proficient, I suspect we would still be using a lot of typewriters.

OK, readers, have at me...

* "[Pinkney is] Coretta Scott King award winner, founder of "Jump at the Sun" (the first dedicated African-American imprint in children's books) at Hyperion, and probably our most honored and respected editor of color in children's books)" Bruce Coville

** Something these reviews made me think about were the sorts of things that are socially acceptable today that future generations will find abhorrent - buying clothes made in sweat shops; using fossil fuels; eating meat; allowing children to live in poverty; insisting on private health care; permitting a minimum wage salary which cannot support a family, etc.

Love, balance and critical thinking

The most important word in our language is love.  The second is balance — keeping things in perspective. - John Wooden

As a long-time advocate of balance, I like the graphic above. In my article, Change from the Radical Center of Education Teacher-Librarian, June 2008, I suggested that "radical centrists" in education, adopt to the following principles if one is to truly make change...

1. Adopt an “and” not “or” mindset.
2. Look for truth and value in all beliefs and practices.
3. Respect the perspective of the individual. 
4. Recognize one size does not fit all (kids or teachers).
5. Attend to attitudes.
6. Understand that the elephant can only be eaten one bite at a time.
7. Make sure everyone is moving forward, not just the early adopters.
8. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.”
9. Believe measurement is good, but that not everything can be measured.
10. Know and keep your core values.

As I read the papers, listen to NPR, and even read friends' and relatives' Facebook posts, I can't help but feel the country, if not the world, is ever more polarized and less centered. "If I can't get everything I want, I don't want anything at all!" is the mantra of the decade.

Schools that produce believers rather than thinkers are failures. Schools that produce graduates who are capable of exhibiting, empathy, thinking critically, developing multiple "right" answers, and changing one's beliefs based on evidence are successful.

It doesn't feel like we've done a very good job. Yet.