Admit it...it is easier to Google

"Except for the most arcane materials and users, that which is not available online will simply not be read" (Courant, 2006).


So as I strive towards a degree in library science, you would think I would be frequenting an academic library quite often, right? Not so much. The online library, yes. The actual physical library, no. As the quote above says, when I am researching, and the articles I want are not online, I end up giving up on them and looking for something else that is. While researching (online), I found an article about Google and the internet and whether or not they are destroying academic libraries. The article said, "Meanwhile, on the demand side, everyone wants and expects to do almost everything over the Internet, at least in the initial stages of search. Even our most curmudgeonly faculty, the ones who love breathing the dust of musty tomes, start their day from home looking at the online catalog and browsing collections that they can get to online (Courant, 2006). It is true, it just seems easier to do things online. For example, right now I can research my upcoming ethics paper while sitting at home in my pajamas. That is definitely an upside. The downside? All of the articles that I see that look like they would be perfect for my papers, that I cannot get on the internet. So what do universities do about this? How do they make sure that their students are getting the best information available? Do they force students to come to the library? Or do they change with the times? In the article, the author was from the University of Michigan and what they have decided to do is digitize their entire print collection. This is a huge undertaking, and in 2006 they said they still had about 6 more years to finish it. Despite the time factor being an issue, the article makes a good point. It says, "Our students, and to an increasing extent the rest of us, only look online. We had better make sure that the good stuff is there, or all we will see is inferior material. The risks to the quality of scholarship itself, and to its practical uses, are profound (Courant, 2006). The author feels that if universities want students to produce high quality work with high quality research, they are going to have to provide the research to them in the format that they use. If not, most students will not give in and go to the library. Instead, they will produce work with research they find online, regardless if it is the best information or not. I can see both sides to this, it is definitely an interesting dilemma that academic libraries have to face. What do you think?

Courant, P. (2006, August). Scholarship and Academic Libraries (and their kin) in the World of Google. First Monday, 11 (8). Retrieved March 8, 2008, from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_8/courant/index.html

Public Libraries and their Changing Role

I read an interesting article from the Library Journal about what people use public libraries for. The author was trying to remind readers that people still use libraries for books and not just internet use. She started with a quote from Kansas's Lawrence Journal-World which, described libraries as "inefficient" and "obsolete" and stated that at "any" library, "the stacks are empty; it's the computers that are busy." The quote made the author of the article angry (she said it "burns my toast") as it did me. Yes, I will admit, if you walk into a library and look around, most of the time the computers are full of people and the rest of the library appears dead. However, I believe that people still use libraries for good old fashioned books. I believe it, because I frequent it for books myself. The article discusses how many people tend to go to the local Barnes & Noble or Borders and buy books if they want them, but she thinks that there is still a need for public libraries to offer books as well. I know that I love to browse around a bookstore. The new and latest books are great to look at, and the atmosphere is much more pleasing than most libraries (something else we may need to work on). I can even afford to buy books when I want them. But more often than not, I browse around, write down the books I want, and go home and put them on hold at the local library. Free and easy. Yes, I may not get the books as quickly as I may want them, but it beats buying expensive brand new books that I usually only read once. I also go on amazon.com and do the same. I read the reviews, see what's new or what's coming out, then I go to the library website and put them on hold. This is great for audio books too, because they are very expensive at a bookstore. Now that I think about it, the reason why the rest of the library looks empty to people is probably because the library is so efficient these days. Instead of having to look around the stacks, my books are always in the hold area. All I have to do when I walk into a library is go to the shelves, find my name, grab my books and check out. Overall, I understand that technology has become a large part of public libraries, but I hope that the focus is not lost on books.

Magzis, L. (2007). Books, Books, Books! Library Journal 132 (4), 50.

A Focus on School Libraries

As I was researching, I looked up school libraries on ALA's website and found an article about school libraries and No Child Left Behind. As a teacher, I have my own opinions on No Child Left Behind, but I never thought about it in relation to libraries. The first thing that I read actually made me feel really good about going into the profession. As a teacher, I get to impact so many students' lives on a daily basis. One of the things I was worried about losing was that feeling that I am really making a difference in the lives of students. On the site, there was a quote from a mother and teacher that said,
“I was talking to my college-age children about which teacher had the biggest impact on them. All three agreed that the most beneficial learning took place in the school library. This is where they learned the skills to be successful in college and as life-long learners. They felt that they were more prepared than many of their college classmates when it came to the skills they needed to do research and to write college papers. Their classroom teachers had the opportunity to collaborate with the librarian, devising projects which met the state standards as well as gave them needed skills.Our family motto is, ‘You don’t need to know everything; you just have to know where and how to look for what you need to know.’ With our school librarian’s help, they have those skills.”
That really made me hopeful about what I can do as a librarian.
The rest of the article brought up something that has been bothering me lately. It discussed having qualified media specialists in school as a part of No Child Left Behind. Something that I was not aware of when I entered this program, was that in Hillsborough County, a teacher can simply take a test and be certified as a media specialist. In fact, most often when I tell people what I am getting my degree in, people respond with, "You need a Master's to do that?" Discussing this with the media specialist at my school (who has a degree in Library Science), she mentioned that at her subject area meetings, there is a common complaint that the quality of media specialists has gone downhill in the county. Well, that is not a surprise to me if people simply have to take a test to be certified. I took the ESOL test to meet my requirement for teaching Language Arts. I guessed a lot and passed, but I do not feel qualified to teach English as a second language.
I understand they probably had to do this to fill positions, but I do applaud the idea that schools should be striving to employ media specialists who have a degree in the field. I hope it will make me extra marketable when I finish the program!

'http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/schoollibraries/nochildleftbehind/nochildleftbehind.cfm

The old system just doesn't make sense.

Well, this may be librarian blasphemy, but as a Language Arts teacher who promotes individual reading in my classroom, I have often been frustrated by the way in which fiction books are set up in our media center. Now I know having the fiction books classified by last name is an easy way to find books: when you know exactly what you are looking for! But as a teacher, I see that the large majority of kids that I send to the library have absolutely no idea of a specific book that they are looking for. The most common complaint that I get from students is that they cannot find anything to read. Now I know that our media center is stocked with great books, but they cannot seem to find one when they go there. Even if I am there to help, I often have a hard time finding the kinds of books they want, because believe it or not, I have not read every book there! They are able to tell me things like, "I like action books."So I browse through the shelves, trying to find action books that I have read. Action is not my strong area, so more often than not, I end up not being able to find them a book either. My number one thought on these occasions is how nice would it be if the books were arranged by subject area, like the non-fiction . Imagine, a students tells me they like horror stories, and I can send them to an entire section devoted to horror. As a reader myself, I love that idea. At a bookstore, I most often find myself drawn to the tables or shelves set aside that say stuff like "If you like Harry Potter, try these books." If as an adult I need help in finding books that I like, I know that teenagers need the same help.
I understand that there would be some issues, like books that overlap in subjects. The books would have to be arranged by author within the different categories. I also understand that some of this could be accomplished by creating displays promoting different subject areas. It would take a lot of knowledge and work on the part of the librarian. However, this is definitely an idea I would like to explore in more depth. Who says that the old ways are always the best?

Introduction

Libraries...when I first think of the word library, I think of the public libraries I grew up going to. It's funny, one of the neatest things my mother did for me growing up was make going to the library a fun and exciting adventure for me. My mother did not believe in (and still does not believe in) buying books. She loved to read them though, so the library became at the least a weekly trip for us. Because she developed a love of reading in me at an early age, she took the trips to the library as an opportunity to make something fun happen. When I was really little, we would go through the children's section and starting with A, we would pick a new book each trip. I do not know how many times we made it through the alphabet, but I do know that it was always something I looked forward to.
As I got older, I actually remember my mom getting annoyed at me at times because I wanted to go to the library too often. I devoured books like crazy, and the library and my mom could not keep up with me. Any trips to a mall and a bookstore resulted in me throwing all my money into buying books that I could not get in the library. For some reason the school media center was not a resource for me. Perhaps they did not carry the books I wanted or we did not have a lot of access to them. I cannot recall ever checking out a book from the school library.
My love of libraries went downhill though, as I went off to college. Now libraries were not for getting the newest novel, but for research. I went to the University of Illinois, and while the library was touted for being one of the best, I hated it. It was too big, I had no idea how to use it, and it was not even a nice place to study. I quickly found as many ways of not using the library as possible. I think if they had actually given us a tour and taught us how to use the library at some point, I would have gotten a lot more out of it. Even today, as I go back to my college studies, I avoid the college library as much as I can, using the internet and public library instead.
Now as I begin my library studies, I see that there are many types of libraries with many different issues involved in each. I will attempt to look at these different kinds of libraries and learn what I can. My goal is to become a media specialist and so my blog will most likely focus more in that area than in others. I have strong opinions about how a media center should be used in a school and what the role of a media specialist should be.
This is my first time blogging, so hopefully I will figure this all out!