Interview questions

It's the time of the year for hiring new library media specialists.

 (A little advice for job hunters.)

Find below the general list of interview questions we use in the Mankato Schools...

1. Tell us a little about yourself. (Classroom teaching experience?)
2. What do you consider the most important job of a media specialist?
3. If I were to visit your last school, how would the students describe you?
4. How would the other teachers describe you?
5. What should be the relationship between the media specialist and the school principal?
6. Describe one of your successful teaching lessons.
7. How do you help apprehensive adults overcome their nervousness about technology?
8. Describe what computer platforms you are comfortable with and what software you could teach. What is your experience with the Internet?
9. What is the last new skill or new piece of technology or software you learned? When was that, and how did you go about learning it?
10. What kind of atmosphere would you like to create in your media center?
11. Describe a project or program that you have administered about which you feel proud.
12. What experience do you have in seeking grants to help in the purchase of media center resources?
13. How will you demonstrate that the media program is having a positive impact on student achievement in the school?
14. What strategies would you employ to improve student reading skills?
15. What is your philosophy regarding the filtering of internet sites?
16. If you were the one selecting a media specialist, what professional and personal qualities would you look for?
17. What kind of changes do you feel will happen in schools and in media centers in the coming years?
18. Do you have questions for us?

Another interesting set of questions:

1. What your job will be like ideally in five years? Answer honestly in ways that both fit your teaching style and personality as well as what you think is best for the students and teachers you serve. How will the media center be different than what it is now? What new resources and services might it offer? How will the skills you teach be different? How will the methods use to teach them be different? Under what conditions would a child come to the media center?
2.  How would students describe your job? Why would they come to you for help?
3. How would teachers describe your job? Why would they come to you for help?
4. How would the principal describe your job? Why would he/she come to you for help?
5. What kinds of things would you be doing that no one else in the building could do?

Add your favorite (or least favorite) interview questions. Any that truly stumped you?

Here is another thoughtful question suggested by Janet HasBrouck out in California:

How will you promote books to students who are so electronically and digitally charged?

Michael Jensen's information eco-system

"Today, if something's not available digitally, it's rapidly becoming as good as invisible." Michael Jensen.

As a part of the College of DuPage's Library Challenges and Opportunities April 28, 2006 teleconference, "Google Book Search," Michael Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies at the National Academies Press, listed a number of ways in which one type of information is becoming more valued than another by today's searchers. This is the list he  shared:

• Free trumps cost.
• Open trumps firewalled.
• Easy trumps intricate.
• Fast sufficiency trumps clumsy quality.
• Integrated/linked trumps siloed.
• Findable trumps precise.
• Recommended trumps available.
• Updateable trumps static.
  

What Jensen shared is what a number of us see happening with K-12 students and their information seeking/using behaviors. They (and many adults, me included) are "satisfic-ing."

While Jensen is looking at information ecosystems through a scholarly publishing lens, we as school library media specialists need to be thinking about what this evolution means in regard to our programs and resources as well.

• Are our libraries/schools providing information resources that are "free, open, easy, fast, integrated, findable, recommended, and updateable"  or "costly, firewalled, intricate, clumsy, siloed, unfindable and static?"
• Is there any reason to be buying print reference materials? 
• How hard do we struggle against this evolutionary trend, working to put "quality" information into students' hands? Do we as librarians need to adapt to a new environment ourselves?
  
• Are we really committed to teaching the evaluation of information quality? Are we making any head-way getting teachers interested in teaching kids about evaluating the quality of information?
  
• Can we take the "risks" Jensen in his keynote (link below) suggests libraries must take if they are to successfully evolve?
  

Links to writings in which this topic is developed:

• Jensen's keynote to Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries on March 30, (referenced in the COD teleconference and a must read).
• Jensen's other papers and presentations
• What is Web 2.0 (Tim O'Reilly's seminal work which bears re-reading).
  

Happiness in black and white

These are the two main reasons why I worry about little things like schools, libraries, technology, the economy, the environment, world peace, global warming, the national budget deficit ...

There is every likelihood both these boys will live into the NEXT century. Wouldn't it be nice if by then, the world was a better place? Happy Friday and have a good weekend.