I stepped off the merry-go-round for a month, to spend time with family, reconnect with my “roots” in Canada – and to just savor introducing my eighteen-month old son to family and Christmas traditions I hope he’ll come to value. It wasn’t entirely intentional, but the dial-up account  at my parents’ home in Canada was just no longer up to the task. Even webmail was painfully slow, and web pages poured in at glacial speed, while video was basically inaccessible.  And then I got back and found that two weeks had slipped by without my getting back online. Now I’m really playing catch-up…

I spent much of the fall semester exploring  new technologies encountered at Learning2.0 in Shanghai and had striven to bring new interactivity to our work in ISB’s Main Library.  Returning from Shanghai in September, I had;

• tinkered with our library blog (adding a couple of social networking options – Flickr feed, promotional title carousel, etc.)
• launched a Student Writers’ Ning and tried to establish a Skype-video collaboration with student writers in Shanghai. Weekly f2f sessions between student writers at ISB and Shekou were to present students with new opportunities for personal expression, to promote interest in personal writing projects and to provide writers with external feedback from outside our closed community.
• added a “Gamers” section to my HS Library Club (”Gutenberg’s Intent”) and invited MMORPGers to help me learn about Halo, WOW and the other games they’d rather play than work…
• worked through an entry-level launch of our new online catalog (Follett’s Destiny, complete with Webpath Express and OneSearch, with one-stop access to 6 research databases)
• helped prep our “Library Review” committee with background reading to our Main Library review, with key readings from Johnson, Stephens, Todd, Valenza and others currently leading the field.
• worked at enhancing student interest in library research by buttressing sessions on subscription research tools with Delicious tagging and YouTube Videos (“Guybrarian” – listed 2004, actually 2005, & due for an update)
• Joined Twitter to connect to like-minded librarians. My Twitter name’s rubisr – the same that I use for most public log-ons.
• Updated my Second Life account, tweaked my avatar (he still looks like a ’60s dropout, but he’s all mine! – “Sonof Smadga”, if you’re in SL), and joined Chris Smith in a virtual round-table discussion on the state – and the future – of libraries, with Doug Johnson and Diane McKenzie.

In spite of best intentions, though, I was feeling, at semester’s end, farther than ever from achieving a balance between what’s possible and what’s practical in a real-world school library setting. I was less than enthralled with the real change brought about by any of my fall efforts. Specifically;

• we haven’t really moved our blog forward in terms of functionality, and apparently not really captured student interest with it. A library walkthrough reveals continued prevalence of Google, Wikipedia, games and and social networking sites.
• the challenges of flaky bandwidth, grainy webcams, and, frankly, sketchy goals have brought the Skype-video project to an indefinite hiatus. The Ning has garnered no new postings since November. Several of my student writers claim they’re working on material – but the Ning’s not what they need at this point, and the Skype sessions just seemed to have no purpose.
• In spite of enhanced catalog functionality (TitlePeek adds a Google look; WebPath Express links to focused websites), we haven’t seen a change in student propensity for Googling through assignments.
• Although the social tagging power of Delicious and YouTube is seductive, the research “course of least resistance” is still prevalent in both students – and in teachers. Truth is that a simple Google search still points researchers to adequate resources to meet most assignment needs.
• My Twitter account has languished – no, it’s truly moribund. I haven’t posted since November. I still have 13 “followers” – but they just haven’t gotten around to dumping me yet.
• Since stumbling through a virtual seminar on SL, where bandwidth limitations reduced my avatar to a shambling caricature, I haven’t been back. I’m intrigued with Second Life, and all virtual worlds – but realistically, at least from my vantage point in the rice-paddies outside Bangkok, it’s not really there yet.

And so, it’s time to rethink where I’m going with both my efforts to infuse new approaches into our library program, and whether I’m still obsessing over “stuff” (a la Ross Todd, 2008) rather than truly introducing transformational ideas that will connect with kids’ interests and needs.

In the month I was away from RSS feeds and daily blogs, the world has continued to climb that ever-steepening curve of technological evolution tied to educational innovation. Glancing over the Blue Skunk blog, the Never-ending Search, and Tame the Web, to name just a few, suggests that if I had my work cut out for my last semester, I’m now faced with a task of Herculean proportions.  My first inclination, honestly, was too simply say, “There’s no way. It’s just too much.”  But hey, what’s that saying about a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?

As part of our efforts at ISB to institutionalize (dangerous word, but I think it fits in the purest sense) thinking about learning, we’ve launched a new series of graduate courses leading to either a Masters Degree or a Certificate on Educational Technology and Informational Literacy. One of our first assignments was to develop a blog, and to link it to the online course framework. This is going to be it.

Michael Stephens’ post on “Ten Trends and Technologies for 2009″ looks like a great place to start, particularly with the nuggets he’s embedded in the “What does this mean for libraries?” notes. A few of these include:

• Investigate what it means to offer a space that feels like “home” where access and information is unimpeded (the Value of the Commons)
• It’s not the library blog or wiki, or Bookspace, or GoodReads, or Meebo embedded librarian on the results page, it’s people…and connections…it’s about meeting people where they live and providing them with the services they need or want. It’s about encouraging them (The Care and Nurturing of the Tribe)
• people want to feel connected and welcome. The want to feel that a space – physical or virtual – that they spend time in – belongs to them (The Importance of Personalization)
• make things easy and useful…Use failures as learning moments to influence the next plan or service. Failure is cool if it doesn’t prevent you from moving forward (The Shift toward Open Thinking)

And so – with those exhortation to guide me, it’s back to the fray!

A little belatedly – Welcome to 2009! (or Gung Hoy Fat Choi, for the internationally inclined)

Rob

…day by day. It’s been my email “byline” for a couple of years now.

“It’s not what we say, it’s what we do – day by day.”

As we approach the almost vertical part of just about any of the many technology implementation or change curves (on a standard graph) regularly popping up these days, I’m plagued by the question, “What happens when the timeline crosses over the vertical line of the y-axis? What will we do, day-by-day, when we cross this threshold, or the one we see coming next week, or the Technological Singularity that Ray Kurzweil predicts will happen within our lifetimes. What will it mean for my work as a teacher, a librarian, a professional colleague and a lifelong learner?

Kurzweil’s “MassUse of Inventions Diagram from  “The Law of Accelerating Returns” shows the problem.

According to this one, we’re already ON the other side of this vertical curve! With the birth of the internet, the world became connected in ways which we are told will fundamentally change how we, as a species, develop, archive, access, share and “transform” information and ideas. In a way, the birth of the Internaet has been a dress-rehearsal for the Technological Singularity, that point at which Artificial Intelligence exceeds biologic, human intelligence. It has been almost a “mini-singularity”.

So have our lives changed in fundamental, core ways? Do I interact, on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment basis with my family, friends and professional colleagues, in a way that is fundamentally different than I did before 1995? Are my daily life routines (getting up at 4:50 am, working from 7:00 – 4:00, spending from 6:00 – 9:00 with family, and awaiting “weekends away” from work) different in core ways from what they were “before”? Has the business of meeting work commitments, fulfilling family obligations and achieving personal goals changed become fundamentally different from what it was?

On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like it.  Throughout the last twenty years of educational pedagogy evolution, of global issues awareness-building, and of the exponential increase in the power of the technology at our fingertips, one thing seems to have remained constant. We love to talk about the need for change, and how these latest tools will help us succeed where past innovations have failed. Today we can can brag about the size of our personal online network, expound on the virtues of the new “mashup” tools on our desktop, or chortle about how how we are “reaching out” to a global citizenry using the social networking flavor of the week. When it comes right down to it,  though, is that all it is – just more talk about how things are going to change, now that we have a new widget to help us get a new “round tuitt”?

But then along comes an event like today’s United States presidential election. Although I’m generally cynical about politics and politicians in any areana, I saw a fundamental change today in the way the community to which I’m currently attached, reacted to the momentous events of the day. I saw students shriek in ecstasy at the CNN Win projection. I saw teachers with tears in their eyes at the concession speech. And I spent the 45 minutes on the way to an afternoon meeting listening to American colleagues marvel about how finally, after so many years of guilt-feelings about their country’s failure to measure up to the world’s expectations, they can finally once again wear their nationality with pride.

I am old enough to remember the euphoria that gripped the world in the Kennedy White House years, and after 45 years, I’ve finally seen that same optimism, eagerness, and, yes, euphoria, grip the participants (as we all are in this new “wired” world) – and to reflect that maybe the world IS different on this side of Internet’s “mini-singularity”. Maybe, just maybe, there is hope.

This election is a fitting backdrop for this posting. As I was drafting this earlier, watching Barak Obama deliver his acceptance speech to the American people, and to the world, I heard a subtext in everything he was saying (”change”, “yes, we can”, “we shall overcome”). And that subtext was;

“It’s not what we say, it’s what we do – day by day.”

Congratulations, America, on renewing my faith in democracy, my belief in the work we as educators do to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s challenges, and my hopes for a brighter future beyond the shadow of the clouds hanging over us today.

…from the ground up.

Having assembled a team of “lay-teachers” to engage in a systematic review of our Main Library programs, collections, services, staffing, and, ultimately, facility, we decided we should provide members with a basic starting point. For our next meeting, all members are asked to read three pieces (listed below as well), and then each committee member will be assigned one of the following to read, annotate, and share understandings and insights from with the group at our next (half-day) meeting.

What “big-picture issues have we missed – understanding that we have not yet begun to get into the Nuts ‘n Bolts of what happens day by day in a contemporary school library – and what should happen there… rjr

ISB Main Library

Fa     Facilities Review – Internal Audit

R  Recommended Reading List: (NOT in approved MLA format, but note-referenced and numbered for reader referral. Downloadble free access (as of 16/10/08) websites listed)

A. Information Access/Use Trends and Technologies

3

1. The Horizon Report 2008 edition. A collaboration between New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative.. http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf

2. Harper, Meghan, and Jason Holmes. The Impact of Ubiquitous Computing on Library Facilities. ALA. http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/kqweb/kqarchives/volume35/353/353harperholmes.cfm

3. Stephens, Michael. Web 2.0 & Libraries, Part 2: Trends & Technologies. Library Technology Reports . ALA September–October 2007 . 2007 (PDF file obtained directly from the author. Request from R. Rubis at rubisr@isb.ac.th)

B. Social Networking Tools & Implications for Libraries

1. Aronson, Marc. Do Books Still Matter? School Library Journal. 4/1/2007. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6430154.html

2. Friese, Elizabeth E.G. Popular Culture in the School Library: Enhancing Literacies Traditional and New. Vol. 14, No. 2. School Libraries Worldwide. July, 2008. http://asselindoiron.pbwiki.com/SLE+14%3A2+Friese

3. Naslund, Jo-Anne & Dean Giustini. Towards School Library 2.0: An Overview of Social Software Tools for Teacher-Librarians. School Libraries Worldwide. July, 2007. http://asselindoiron.pbwiki.com/SLW+14%3A2+Nasland+and+Giustini

4. Stephens, Michael. Web2.0 & Libraries. Chapter 1. Exploring Web2.0 and Libraries. Library Technology Reports . ALA September–October 2007 (PDF file obtained directly from the author. Request from R. Rubis at rubisr@isb.ac.th)

C. Teaching/Learning Pedagogy and Standards

1. Standards for the 21^st Century Learner in Action. Draft 2. American Association of School Libraries Draft 2 (AASL) Sections available as individual downloads 2008.http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslproftools/standardsinaction/standardsinaction.cfm

2. Lewis, David W. A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter oof the 21^st Century. College and Research Libraries. Sept. 2007.

3. Novotny, . I Don’t Think, I Click: a Protocol Analysis Study of the Use of a Library Online Catalog in the Internet Age. College & Research Libraries Nov. 2004. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crljournal/2004/november/Novotny.pdf

4. Valenza, Joyce Kasman. A Few New Things. Library Media Connection. blog post at; http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/760015876.html pdf; http://www.linworth.com/pdf/lmc/reviews_and_articles/featured_articles/Valenza_April_May2008.pdf

D. Facilities Design

1. Abilock, Debbie, ed. KQWeb. Facility Dreams. Knowledge Quest on the Web. ALA.. http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/kqweb/kqarchives/volume31/311Abilock.cfm

2. Johnson, Doug. Some design considerations. Originally published as “Questions to Ask When Building or Remodeling a New Media Center”) ERIC ED425609, Jan 1, 1998. http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/some-design-considerations.html

3. Myerberg, Henry. School Libraries: A Design Recipe for the Future. ALA http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/kqweb/kqarchives/volume31/311myerberg.cfm

4. Woodward, Jeannette. Human Error. When Good Intentions meet bad planning, library users pay the price. American Libraries, April 2007. http://windriverconsulting.com/files/0407_Feature_Woodward.pdf

For Further Reading:

ALA Annotated Bibliography on Building Libraries and Additions: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Library_Fact_Sheets&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=25417

ALA Information Literacy Links – http://www.lita.org/aasltemplate.cfm?section=aaslinfolit

School Libraries Worldwide., Volume 14, Number 2, July 2008 file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/rubisr/Desktop/LibReview%20Readings1008/Pair-Share/School%20Libraries%20WorldWide%20Volume%2014,%20Number%202%20-%20July%202008.htm

Library Blogs worth Browsing:

Blue Skunk Blog – Doug Johnson. Author Bio; Doug Johnson has been the Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato (MN) Public Schools since 1991 and has served as an adjunct faculty member of Minnesota State University since 1990. http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/

Infomancy – Christopher Harris – http://schoolof.info/infomancy/ Author Bio: Christopher Harris, leader of a School Library System in New York. Currently working on MLS… from a background in elementary teaching and instructional technology… These are my personal rambling thoughts from a different perspective on libraries, and do not reflect any position of my place of employment. I can be reached at infomancy@gmail.com.

NeverEndingSearch – Joyce Valenza – now hosted at School Library Journal. Author Bio: Joyce is the teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School, a technology writer, and a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program at UNT’s School of Library and Information Science. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334.html

Tame the Web – Michael Stephens. Author Bio: Michael Stephens, Ph.D., is currently Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. http://tametheweb.com/

TeacherLibrarian Ning – (not a blog, but a social network created by Joyce Valenza to link librarians and explore Library2.0 issues. http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/

Oh, indeed! I posted a couple of times from the ECIS Librarians’ Conference in Berlin with Ross Todd in February, and although I found Ross’s exhortation to librarians to “move from Informational to Transformational services” compelling, six months later I can’t say my professional skillset was really advanced by that experience. Philosophically, I was there, but then reality set in; Summer Home Leave, firstborn son starting to walk and talk, connectivity challenges at school; everything got in the way of really changing the way I do business.

I have been struck by the differences in the conference in Shanghai; by the quantity – and quality, of my direct learning coming out of it. In short, either leading up, to, during, or immediately following the close of Learning2.008, I’ve;

• Upgraded my HS Library Blog before leaving to show that I’m moving toward Learning2.0. I added a new header photo (live kids!), found a widget (with TRC Dennis’s help) to add a “carousel” of “books of the week”, and updated our Main Library Flickr stream.
• Connected with a vibrant new group of  librarians here from as far away as Australia and Canada, and sat f2f with several to mull over web2.0 and the future of libraries. After meeting many of the same faces for years in the EARCOS region, these folks are are the heart of what I see as a vibrant new Personal Learning Network.
• Reconnected with several colleagues who’ve influenced me over the years, notably Candace Aiani, Upper School Librarian at TAS. Candace has just finished her Doctorate and is still the smartest librarian I know in SE Asia:)
• Started checking out blogs by Learning2.0 presenters, and and their links, and so through them broadening my thinking on the big questions. This Learning Network intersecting with the above.
  
• Became a Twitter convert, finally seeing how it can bring all the above together in a Personal Learning Network with a combined intellectual resource set that’s nothing short of awesome.
• Revisited the TeacherLibrarian Ning that Joyce Valenza set up last year, joined “The changing and evolving library” Group, and invited several librarians I met today to join that conversation.
• Revisited Second Life, sat in on Chris Smith’s tour of International School Island, and seen new potential for learning in virtual worlds.
  
• Read Jeff Utecht’s latest post in The Thinking Stick in which he challenges us to move beyond the idea of “technology as a tool” to technology as a “Connection Creator”. Food for future thought here.
  
• Forwarded several resources directly to my Head of School, to help keep him in touch with what’s influencing my thinking regarding the future of libraries in general, and our library in particular. The best of these might be “The Horizon Report 2008“, brought to us by presenter Alan Levine.

More as it sinks in – but this may have been the best conference I’ve attended in ten years. WOW!

…not really, but I am wary of becoming a cheerleeder for uncritical adoption of “digital literacy” as the wave of the future – if it’s at the expense of traditional reading skills and the metacognitive abiities that arise from these.  This blog has helped me to reflect on my growing ambivalence, and the small cadre of readers who’ve responded to my posts have convinced me that the issues I”m mulling over are legitimate and my concerns shared by others.

I’m relieved to know that I’m in good company when I wonder whether jumping onto the digital literacy bandwagon  has any obvious downsides. When Maryanne Wolf’s “Proust and the Squid: the Story and Science of the Reading Brain” was released on Audible.com last week, and after reading the reviews in the California Literary Review  and in the Guardian (thank you, Google!),  I couldn’t resist. Would Wolf shed some light on my ambivalence toward the latest incarnation of instant messaging and social networking? Would her conclusions about Socrates’s fears for the future of the “thinking mind” with the advent of written literature help me more unconditionally embrace the new technologies that I fear are threatening a traditional love of reading?

I bought the audio download and over the long weekend just past I listened to the full 8 hours and change once, and Chapter 1 and 9 (the introduction and conclusion) twice. Several chapters are rather tough sledding through the study of memory, reading and intellectual analysis at the molecular level, and much of the book is devoted to the study of dyslexia, a topic I find relevant and important, but not as compelling to me as the overarching issues involving the future of reading for all, dyslexic or not. Wolf’s analysis of Socrates’s fears (introduced in Chapter 1 and revisited in Chapter 9) alone, is worth the price of purchase.

To be sure, if I had tried to read this book in the traditional print format, I never would have made to the end. Having listened through, however, I’ve now dropped a copy in my Amazon shopping cart and I really do want to dig into what she says in a format where I can take the time to really absorb what she’s saying; to internalize the questions she raises and the conclusions she offers, and to incorporate these fully into my personal schema for understanding a little better what motivates my students to read.  For me, and, according to Wolf, that format is, and should continue to be, print.

PD Smith (the Guardian) says it better than I could. Until I can get my own copy of “Proust and the Squid”, I’ll close this post with Smith’s summation of what is, for me, the most compelling issues Wolf raises.

” But in the “Google universe”, with its instant over-abundance of information, how we read is being changed fundamentally. On-screen texts are not read “inferentially, analytically and critically”; they are skimmed and filleted, cherry-picked for half-grasped truths. By doing this we risk losing the “associative dimension” to reading, those precious moments when you venture beyond the words of a text and glimpse new intellectual horizons. Although not opposed to the internet, Wolf concludes on a cautionary note: we need to be “vigilant” in order to preserve “the profound generativity of the reading brain”.

And so, onward, promoting digital literacy in my library as an adjunct to, rather than a replacement for, traditional reading.