Innovative Partnerships

Bookstart, the UK version of "Books for BC Babies" (or rather, the prototype of Books for BC Babies), is not only impressive in its mission "to provide a free pack of books to every baby in the UK, to inspire, stimulate and create a love of reading that will give children a flying start in life." It's the partnerships that got my brain juices flowing! The organisation has developed some pretty darn impressive partnerships in their efforts to get the kids into the libraries and reading. I love the "book crawl" idea: every time kids visit the library they earn stickers that can then be traded in for "certificates." The certificates have been designed by well-known authors and illustrators. As the website says, they're "lovely keepsakes of children's earliest years as library members." Partnering with authors/illustrators in this venture is beneficial for everyone (it keeps the publishing wheel going...)

I'm also loving the fact that the libraries and booksellers have collaborated... what a concept! Instead of seeing big box bookstores/independent bookstores as competition, the libraries are working with the stores in their early literacy pursuits. They have a token system integrated with the bookstart packages so everyone receives a voucher towards a book in participating bookstores (over 1200 bookstores are involved! Holy smokes that must have been some work to establish). I'm inspired by this relationship- it truly illustrates how libraries have been continually flexible to make themselves relevant and necessary.

The Every Child Ready to Read program is amazing... I love all the resources that come with the site. I have been to a Saroj Gatong workshop before and learnt many practical ways to integrate educating the parents in with storytimes. I find it gets a bit formulaic sometimes- it seems a bit artificial to pop in things about phonetic awareness during a rhyming book- but overall I think the background information gives us a good basis for programming. It makes me realize we're doing so much more than entertaining young ones... we're actually "literacy professionals" who have created programs thoughtfully with a big picture in mind.

Babies are smart

Diane McGuinness, in her book Growing a Reader from Birth, relates a number of studies that have been done on the communicative patterns of babies. My favourite one is the Scottish study that filmed mothers in conversation with their young infants. Here are a few reactions the babies had to mom's soothing voice:

• when mom swayed closer, so did baby
• every time mom made eye contact, they locked onto mom's eyes
• when mom gazed and talked to her infant, she got a bright smile in return
• when her voice dropped in cadence and she paused slightly, the baby would pause with an ooh or a wiggled fist.

Now, when the babies were propped up to watch a replay of the mom's portion on a different day, something really interesting happened. The baby's face lit up "like a ray of sunshine" as soon as mom's face appeared on the screen. As the seconds ticked by, and baby would interject with a gurgle or a happy grunt and mom's response did not fit in with what her baby did, the baby's eyes opened wider. The baby stared harder. Each time he tried to take a turn, and mom didn't respond with the appropriate behaviour, the infant became sober, the corners of his mouth dropped, his brow furrowed, and it was long before he started wailing!

This proves that even at the tender infant age, the conversational dance between baby and mother is recognized as important by the baby. Babies are much more intuitive than people give them credit for! A lot goes on behind those seemingly dozy eyes. This kind of research is fascinating for a new mom, and would be the perfect thing to mention during any type of librarian-led storytime to reinforce the importance of singing/rhyming/reading with your baby. Eye contact and responding to the reactions of babies/conversing with them is CRUCIAL right from birth. According to that study, the babies have basically told us this themselves!

LIBR529: Services for Families and Early Literacy in the Preschool Years

This entry marks the beginning of a new course! We will be exploring all the research around early literacy and language acquisition. For the first week, we were supposed to choose a book from a selected bibliography and pick out five points that piqued our interest for further discussion. Since I did not have access to those books, I found a database article that I would like to comment on: "Babies and Books in the School Library." It is also a nice transition piece from my previous LIS460 posts.

I am a teacher who is VERY eager to return to the schools in a teacher librarian capacity and my tummy does flips at the possibility of integrating a baby/tot program in the school library. As is evident through an early literacy mandate and provinical grant for early learning initiatives in my school district, educators are finally embracing the research that indicates "50% of a person's intellectual capacity is developed before age four" (Dorothy Butler, Babies Need Books). What a fabulous thing that the schools now recognize that the building blocks of early literacy happen before school starts! It makes sense to not only work with the families of school-aged children, but the families of the surrounding school communities to ensure kindergarten readiness. What's that old saying, "it takes a village to raise a child?"

A baby/tot program run through the school library would only lead to wonderful things. It's almost like an insurance policy! During a storytime program, all the songs, rhymes and stories provide ample opportunities to introduce the parent to all of the research about early brain development. If the parents practice the rhymes at home, sing songs, read to their babies and take the research to heart, then their children will have the foundation skills necessary for a positive start in kindergarten. Not only that, they will have a built-in, positive association with books and the library. It's a win-win-win-win situation!!!

Second Life and School Libraries?

Boy was that a fun way to end the class! I had lots of fun exploring with Linda and Eileen in SL earlier this week. "Exploring" is an appropriate term... I really felt like I was a foreigner in a strange land, and although Linda clearly has more experience, it felt like she was exploring with us. I think that was the most wonderous thing about it: feeling like we were a little group that stuck together, learning new things. I really see how that would translate so nicely in a school atmosphere. I personally think it would enhance the social spirit in a classroom community. Everyone would learn new things together.

I'm not sure how excited I was about the libraries there- pardon me, I mean cibraries! I just can't get beyond the idea of a library without books. Entering those empty spaces to sign a guest book and access the library's catalogue online wasn't quite cutting it for me... it honestly felt very cold and personality-less. Perhaps this will change as the infrastructure evolves.

After reading all the problems classmates were having logging on and staying on, I wonder if it would be practical to introduce SL during a library lesson? I think it's true- all things like this need an alternative lesson "back-up," but wouldn't it be frustrating nonetheless. Especially because anything "alternative" would be a huge disappointment for the students! (How could a lesson be more cool than creating avatars to explore a virtual world????)

That's not to say I'd rule it out. I would just give lots of practice runs before going for it!

Trust

Relationship-building with teachers, students, parents, and the community at large is probably the most important part of being a school librarian. Even as the children's librarian at the public library, I find that building relationships is one of the most integral parts of fulfilling my role effectively. The technology aspect really works to enhance these relationships... every time we initiate any one of the "techie" things were learning in this class in our workplace, if we keep this at the forefront then we'll all be successful.

As I'm nearing the end of the my library studies, I'm really starting to buy into our value! I mean, I always knew that libraries are the cornerstones of the community and the heart of the school, but the actual role of librarian was always somewhat fuzzy to me. Unfortunately, I'm not alone... patrons don't have a clue about how a library is structured, or what librarians actually do. People always look at me somewhat perplexed when I tell them about my crazy day at the library. I even had one neighbour say to me when I told him about my schooling, "ha, you may as well make $20 an hour checking out books!" Librarians have never been very good at marketing themselves. I think with these technology tools, we'll be able to smack people in the face and let them know we can help! Now that our roles are demanding an understanding of technology, we'll be more visible or at least more valued in the community's eyes. At the very least, our role will be more highlighted as the information professionals we are...

Along the same lines, relationship building requires a huge investment of time and energy on all ends. HUGE. In my neck of the woods, we have a crazy "temporary contract" phenomena swooping our school system. If school systems aren't willing to gaurantee a continuing contract for their teachers and teacher librarians, this relationship-building goes all to pot. I sure hope this changes with the rash of retirements everyone keeps talking about! (I came into teaching six and a half years ago and when I graduated from teacher's college, they told us all "in the next five years you'll have your pick of jobs." Still not seeing that happen). Patience, patience, patience.

Dreadful Databases

I was excited to learn about federated searching today. I have a real love/hate relationship with databases. As a graduate student, I love the access to the hundreds of databases in the UBC system. I'm always able to find highly relevant, full-text articles for my research. Full-text is important to me, because my time is valuable and I hate being led on a wild goose chase following link after UBC e-link only to hit a dead end. Before entering UBC as a graduate student I was terrified of databases. I didn't even know what they were, really! In my undergraduate years (93-97) I never even knew they existed. I did all of my research through journals and books at the library. I think I'm not alone in my (prior) fear of databases. They are intimidating, and as Baule pointed out in his article Data Data Everywhere, they're awkward to use because of their specificity. It's no wonder that students tend to "satisfice," or find the path of least resistance and settle with mediocre information for assignments. I think we're all guilty of this! Google rocks.

But I was reflecting on my practicum at the local high school here, where I had the opportunity to give a ten minute mini-lesson on finding information for each classes' assignments. I pushed the online databases that were available to them (ThomsonGale and EBSCO) and no one went for it in their research! I think this had a bit to do with what Baule was talking about- Google is just easier- but as I was perusing the articles available on ThomsonGale and EBSCO, I realized it's because the information is presented dreadfully! At least with online web resources the students can find something that will reel them in- either it's formatted with lots of white spaces, the print is bigger, there are lots of interesting visuals, or the colour combination/background colour appeals to them. There could also be lots of different medias on a website- from auditory to video streams, and opportunity for social interaction through comments/feedback links and blog-type entries.

The information presented in databases on the other hand is just BORING. The articles seem to always be on a plain white background, they have tiny print, they lack any sort of media- at least, it's hardly integrated in the body of the article- they are just boring paragraph after boring paragraph of information. It's like a textbook digitized. What student would pick that over the exciting way websites present information?

If we as school librarians are paying the big bucks for online databases, I want to be darn sure that the kids are going to use it. Sure, there are databases that kick it up a notch higher than ThomsonGale and EBSCO like Searchasaurus, Primary Search, and Student Research, but even though their interface might have a touch more pizazz the content is presented in the same way: BORING! If anyone knows of a good database that would give a school library the best bang for their buck, I would love to hear about it.

Clutter

I'm wondering if experimenting with all these great web publishing tools is merely adding to information clutter on the web. Don't get me wrong... I think it's fantastic that it's so easy to publish on the web. But with the mind-boggling amount of information that is created each day, I wonder if our egos are getting in the way of social responsibility. I mean, is it really necessary to have people's journals online for everyone to sift through when searching by keyword? Let's face it: a lot of the information on the web is trite and its presence contributes to information overload. I'm not trying to be an intellectual ellitist... I don't think everyone should publish something intelligent or not publish anything at all... but I'm just wondering how much stuff on the web is directly related to personal ego gratification as opposed to information dissemination?

After all, that's the hook with podcasts, blogs, wikis, and any other social networking tools we're introducing to kids in the classroom... the public audience is what gets them going. It's the idea that someone- some person in the "real world" will listen if you publish online. I'm not sure if that's entirely true, though. What a wonderful project those Coulee kids are doing with their classroom podcast... the teacher's introduction and explanation of their podcast journey was truly inspirational. But to be quite honest, who would subscribe to that from the general public? The only ones listening to them are the students themselves, the teacher, the principal (maybe), perhaps the parents, and people like us who are directed! I sound like a real pooper, but I'm only questioning the public availability of it all. It just seems to add to the information clutter on the web. I wonder if the deep web is a better place for these things to be, and that way it would only be available to a specific audience.

Audience aside, I think these tools pose amazing possibilities for teacher collaboration! I love that the South African curriculum is a wiki. It makes PERFECT sense to have a place where teachers can post lessons, edit lessons because something didn't work, and network with other subject-specific teachers on an ongoing basis. This discovery was the most exciting for me, since anything that connects teachers is important to me. In my experience, being a classroom teacher is one of the most isolating jobs. That's why I loved being in the school library- because you actually work with other adults to create better learning experiences for the students and I find that very gratifying. Being in the classroom can be awfully lonely, so a wiki for posting lessons/reflections/questions for people in parallel positions to ponder and respond to is wonderful.