After attending a conference on libraries and technology, I discovered a new way to explain our high school library to our users. We recently moved the shelves back into a wing of the area, opening up space for tables and students. One of my favorite faculty members came into the new configuration and said he felt the loss of the books. (They are there...just not in the middle of the room.) They aren't gone, just moved aside to create a work space for kids who want to use books and computers to create!
The conference speaker, Dr. David Loertscher, who is a great thinker in libraries, reminded us that the client is more important than the organization--the Google model. We can provide students the tools for them to build. He suggested that our library be a learning commons which provides physical and virtual tools for the community: http://www.davidvl.org/Davidvl.org/Home.html
First of all, I like the way he looks at the library website as a conversation for collaboration. The library web page can offer a place for learning projects, virtual book clubs, discussion, assignment conversations, and even a virtual year book for student work. He suggests beginning with personal space on an igoogle page, surrounded by a group space for working collaboratively on a project, and finally outer space which connects to the world. This model changes the dynamic of some assignments as both teacher and student are involved in a dynamic assignment using an RSS feed to update the conversation. He delineated the difference between a school using administrative computing, locked down for attendance, etc., as well as a more open structure for instructional computing. Through this new model of collaborative tools, we will teach responsibility and safety, building access much the same way as the "dimmer switch" on a light bulb, allowing more light (and access) as a student can handle it.
Whether teachers will grab the concept of 2.0 tools for the classroom wholeheartedly or not, we as librarians can set the tone for our library, showing all how the space can be used. By using the library as an experimental learning center, we can schedule and arrange the space to adapt to the needs of the students. We really don't want a library that is a storage place for books or a place where students sit and do nothing. We desire a productive space where books and computers don't get in the way of students thinking and creating.
In the new space students will work individually, in small groups, and in large groups. Specialists can "office" in the library to combine their efforts resulting in more creativity and productivity than a teacher or a librarian could have done without the other. The library can be the experimental learning center that belongs to nobody and everybody at the same time. It can be a safe zone for risk taking. New teachers can be nurtured there and action research can take place.
How does our library measure up to these standards of an open common work space? Does our library reflect
1. a sense of ownership by administrators, teachers, students
2. a place to collaborate, innovate...
3. flexibility
4. active versus passive learning
5. specialists pushing together
6. change
7. excellence
Most important in the ideas that confronted me at the conference was the use of technology. Of course technology has increased efficiencies. (We do remember the typewriter, etc.) But what has technology done to make deep understanding possible in our knowledge in chemistry? in literature? Do we confront major ideas on contemporary issues? Do we create possibilities for creativity? Certainly the computer has given students a chance for unlimited products and distribution as never before, but are we asking them to create something new and make new connections with what they are learning?
As we look at and use our library differently, the stakes are high. We can change the library from a place for checking out books to a learning center which allows teachers and students to be creative. The library is a phoenix which will arise in this new concept.
