A Curious View of the World

Latest issue of the Courier

One of the volunteer roles I took on this role was serving as co-editor of the Courier, a newsletter produced for members of the Toronto Chapter of SLA. The position gives me the opportunity to work with a variety of writers and meet new people in the profession. I am happy to report that the latest issue, Volume 47, Number 3, Spring 2010, is now available on the SLA Toronto website.

Here is the Editor’s Letter I wrote for this edition:

Our second issue of 2010 is one of the biggest and best we have ever seen. As usual, the Courier remains the best place to stay informed about the activities and accomplishments of the chapter’s members and leadership. This issue also contains reports on one of the Chapter’s latest events — Dine-Arounds, a wonderful way to combine dining with professional development.

This issue also benefits from a number of first time contributors ranging from student members to librarians. The winners of the 2010 FPinfomart Student-to-Conference Award, Elysia Guzik and Shannon McMillan, have included their statements in this issue. Katya Pereyaslayska and Sandy Iverson both explore the topic of education from different angles. Dana Craig and Peter Duerr of York University explain how GIS technologies can be used to cope with disasters and emergencies. The breadth and variety of these contributions should make for a very stimulating read.

Please enjoy the issue and keep sending in the great contributions!

CLA 2010 Conference

My time in Edmonton, Alberta attending the 2010 Canadian Library Association conference was well spent and well worth it. I learned a great deal on many different topics, professional and technological. It was also a pleasure to see some friends from my information and library science program who have taken jobs all across Canada. On a less hopeful note, I was troubled to learn about the extent of CLA’s financial crisis and the reality that the organization may be bankrupt in eighteen months without some dramatic changes. Most of the discussion on the conference on that topic seemed focused on describing the problem rather than considering possible solutions, but one has to start somewhere.

My presentation on net neutrality and what it means for libraries was Saturday morning and I’m happy to report that it was a success. There was around fifty people in attendance and plenty of interesting questions and comments, which I find particularly rewarding as a presenter. My point that Canadian libraries and librarians have thus far dedicated little advocacy attention to net neutrality was also well received. Given how many challenges face our society, it is difficult to know which problems we should focus our energy on as information professionals. My argument for focusing more advocay energy on Internet issues rests on three points: 1) the Internet as service delivery mechanism (e.g. I work as a Reference Librarian for the AskON service, a project of Knowledge Ontario which won an award for innovative use of technology!), 2) provide access to collections and 3) act as a community Internet service provider (a point that should especially resonate with those in the public library world).

I had the opportunity to attend several sessions on new technologies and I’ll share some of what I learned on that front. The Boopsie company produced a web based application for the conference itself and they have made similar applications for universities, conferences and libraries across the world. As a user, my view is that such web apps represent an improvement from viewing a plain website on a smart phone but they are still nowhere near as useful and interesting to use as a “native application” (e.g. one that one might obtain through the Apple App Store). The big advantage for such web based apps is that they can be developed very quickly – in one to weeks where as a native application can easily take months of design effort. Though I didn’t have a chance to attend, there was also some interesting presentations made on making technology more accessible for those with disabilities. As the 2005 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act makes its presence felt in Canada’s largest province, serving the needs of disabled users will become more and more important.

I also managed to find a few other blog posts about the CLA 2010 conference that might be of interest to readers:

• Misadventures at CLA Day One & Misadventures at CLA Day Two by Jason Hammond
• CLA 2010 by Meghan Ecclestone
• Canadian Library Conference 2010 – #cla2010 by the Curling Librarian
• Mobile: Boopsie Releases WebApp for Canadian Librarian Association 2010 Annual Conference from the Resource Shelf

WILU 2010: Lighting Strikes, Birds of a Feather and more (Day Two)

Conferences are interesting events where the learning, socializing and networking combine to produce a more productive and inspired Bruce. The traditional “sage on the stage” giving a presentation is still a very popular model and one that succeeds in many cases. That said, I like when conferences experiment with different models and that’s what I received today. The day began with “lighting strikes” sessions where presenters have to convey a concept or practice in seven minutes. Michelle Baratta and Sarah Forbes  from the University of Toronto presented on their efforts to use games, both video and real life, to engage students and build engagement.The creativity and energy of these presenters (and others I haven’t mentioned) was a great way to start the second day of the conference.

The “birds of a feather” session (see the official WILU notes on the session) was a free form ‘unconference’ style session. Participants looked at a list of tables dedicated to different topics, sat down and started talking. My table explored the challenge of student motivation. To my delight, another librarian raised Dan Pink’s work on motivation who has argued that the drive for mastery, autonomy and purpose. Others discussed exercises they have devised for students that challenges them to think critically about what they read. I was intrigued by the idea of setting high expectations – university is a demanding intellectual environment – and community. By interacting with their sources deeply, students can join the community of scholars. Intrinsic motivation is the best kind and librarians ought to seek out ways to engage it but there was a consensus that some students appear to be motivated solely by carrots and sticks. I’m not sure that a love of learning can be instilled in every case but it is well worth trying.

In the afternoon, I attended two sessions that sought to explore and understand students more deeply. From Utah State University, Wendy Holliday presented on, “From Active Learning to Activity: Getting Beyond Busy Work and into Deep Learning.” This ethnographic research followed a first year composition class, observing how students and instructors interacted. Reading actual transcripts of instructor-student interaction was enlightening on several levels as it revealed how both parties think about assignments and learning. Many students appear to desire (or indeed, operate from) a check list approach for research that short circuits learning and research. As Holliday argues, “information literacy is a reading problem,” – without deep and sustained reading, students will rarely progress beyond busy work.

The day’s presentations culminated with a deeply challenging but vital issue facing academic librarians; how can we support at risk students? Presented by Janet Goosney from Memorial University, I learned how librarians worked with struggling students, writing centre staff and instructors to support students. One of the reasons given for the success of the program was the history of close collaboration between Memorial’s librarians and writing centre staff – that strikes me as a natural partnership once I think about it but it isn’t an idea I had encountered before. The kind of support provided in thte at risk student program (if failing students take it and pass, they can stay on, otherwise they have to leave the university for a time) is a model of academic collaboration. Some of the methods – such as self-reflective student journalling on education – strike me as an effective approach to stimulate student interest. Arguably, many students would benefit from doing that and it is unfortuante that this practice is not more wide spread.

WILU 2010: Design, Play & Learn! (Day 1)

The WILU 2010 conference began today in Hamilton at McMaster University and it looks like it will be a great event. The opening keynote address was given by Dr James Paul Gee, an American academic who has recently published some very interesting work on the relationship between education and video games. Increasing academic interest in gaming is a fascinating trend that I want to understand better. Gee made the argument that players of highly interactive and flexible games (e.g. World of Warcraft and The Sims) master complex rules, language and narratives to successfully play games. They also construct theories about the game’s operation, build software and teach themselves new skills in cooperation with other gamers.  There was a lot to digest in this address and there is a challenge to discern how to apply these ideas to education and libraries.  One appealing idea is to find ways to increase the speed, quality and frequency of feedback in education. Make a mistake in a game and your character perishes; make a mistake in class and it might be weeks before  you fail a test and realize you have to go back and relearn it.

As with other conferences I have attended, deciding which sessions to attend is always a challenge. In the afternoon, I attended two sessions: “Student-focused learning curriculm planning: starting from the ground up” and “Good, better, best! – in peer learning” both given by librarians from Edmonton, Alberta. The student focused learning session, based on research conducted by Professors Heidi Julien and Lisa Given explored how K-12 education prepares students in research and information literacy skills in Alberta. The preliminary results from this multi year study – which tracks students from the senior year of high school to about half way through undergraduate study – are not encouraging. The median score of high school students on the James Madison University Information Literacy Test was 51% or less than proficient. The researchers identified several possible explanations for this weak student performance including the fact that information literacy skills are not formally tested in the province’s education exams. It looks like there is a significant if not institutionalized disconnect between secondary and post-secondary educational priorities.

The last session of the day concerned an interesting internal training program in place at Grant MacEwan University. As Karen Hering described it, the non-evaluative peer learning program involved librarians observing their peers teach and learning new approaches that they could apply on their own. Designed in cooperation with the Faculty Development Office and library leadership, the program has been a success in encouraging better information literacy teaching and bringing together the institution’s librarians who are spread out over several campuses. One of the critical rules that made the program successful was the participation rule: every participant must observe and be observed. This reminds me of Dr Gee’s opening address where he remarked that gamers tend to insist that all players contribute actively; sitting out and underperforming is noticed.

The Hot Docs Doc Library

For four or five years, I have been an avid attendee of the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival held annually in Toronto in late April and early May. Their sheer variety of films and topics available at the event can feel overwhelming but I usually walk away having learned something new and seeing interesting techniques in film making. As with many other film festivals, some fraction of films shown will become more wildly available on either television or cinemas but it is hard to know which ones are “see it here or never!” versus “see it here or in theatres in a few months.” During this year’s festival, I learned about a new project called the Hot Docs Doc Library where you can see a wide variety of Canadian documentary films for free.

According to the site, this project was supported partially through the federal government’s Canadian Culture Online Strategy program. The leadership of the Department of Canadian Heritage in supporting films like this deserves to be supported. As a librarian, I would like to see the library have better organization. It is difficult to search the films or even easily figure out how many there are (my guess is close to three hundred films, including shorts). In the future, I look forward to seeing more Canadian films posted here and seeing how the site evolves over time. Perhaps the administrators of the service will consider taking on librarians and educators to further develop and expand the site.

How Much Do Libraries Invest in Innovation?

I have nearly finished reading reading Thomas L. Friedman’s latest book, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need A Green Revolution and It Can Renew America” and it has been an  inspiration. Friedman’s discussion of the potential for energy technology innovation has particularly excited me. However, he points out significant problems that deserve greater thought including a a lack of investment in such technology. In discussing investment in innovation, Friedman writes:

Before I go into what sort of price signal we need, though, let me underscore for a moment just how feeble the American system has been during the last fifty years when it comes to stimulating clean energy innovation. Let’s start with a statistic. The total investment in research and development by electric utilities in the United States in 2007 was about 0.15 percent of total revenues. In most competitive industries, the figure is 8 to 10 percent. If your total investment in R & D is 0.15 percent of revenues, that’s not going to buy you much more than a few subscriptions to Popular Mechanics and Scientific American. In fact, the American pet food industry spends more each year on R & D than the American utilities industry does.” (p. 294, Chapter 13: The Stone Age Didn’t End Because We Ran Out of Stones)

If you look at the annual budget of your library, research unit or school media center, what percentage of your budget is dedicated to researching and developing new services, programs and ‘products’ for your users? I suspect that academic libraries have good potential for innovation since they tend to foster and incentivize research activity through grants and providing staff with time to focus on research projects. While the innovations developed by library vendors and technology companies have been very valuable, I wonder if some parts of the profession and our sector have grown somewhat reliant on our suppliers for new innovations. I do think there is great work being done by librarians and the evidence based practice movement is promising. I think we need to go beyond that though. Based on my reading of Friedman (e.g. he tells the story of the US company First Solar that took years to produce and manufacture its solar energy technology successfully) and other sources, successful innovation requires going through many failures and trying many different ideas before finding ideas that work. In addition to providing time and funds for innovation, librarians and libraries need to allow and encourage more trial and error, more ideas and yes, more failures to come up with new innovations.

What’s your favourite example of a library or librarian innovation? How was it developed?

Launch of the iSchool Institute

In the knowledge economy everyone is a volunteer, but we have trained our managers to manage conscripts.” – Peter Drucker

I had the pleasure to attend the launch of the iSchool Institute tonight and take in Euan Semple’s stimulating lecture. As I understand it, the Institute is part of a broader effort to change the role of the Faculty of Information and increase its impact on the public. The Institute will continue providing continuing education courses that formed the core operation of its predecessor, the Professional Learning Centre, but it will also deliver periodic public lectures such as the one I attended this evening. It was also mentioned that the Institute may develop a consulting service to provide expert advice on information issues to the broader Toronto community and beyond. These are exciting changes – I wonder if these plans were inspired by the Rotman School of Management (which is across the street from the Faculty of Information) which has had a consulting arm called Impact Consulting Group.

Public lectures by leading experts in information work is one part of the Institute’s work that I am particularly excited about. Tonight’s lecture was given by Euan Semple, formerly head of knowledge management at the BBC, on the topic, “Organised Chaos: Social Networks and Enterprise Change.” This was a wide ranging talk about how to use social media in the enterprise/business/organizational setting. As an Anglophile, I was particularly interested in Semple’s metaphor for the tension that IT policies experience when faced with social media tools; at one extreme is the highly managed traditional approach (aka the Milton Keynes style, the UK’s most infamous planned town) versus the organic and open ended approach (aka the  Cotswolds village style). One case study from the BBC was particularly interesting to me. When faced with staff blogging and other social media experimentation, the response was to create an internal wiki where interested staff collaborated and wrote the policy, BBC Guidelines on Employee Weblogs and Websites. I get the impression that engaging staff in the process ultimately made this a more relevant and successful policy. Engaging staff in the creation of an internal policy document underscores why social media and tools matter. Ultimately, social media is not about technology, it is about changing (hopefully for the better!) how people work.

Near the end of his talk, he referred to two recent articles in the British press that really underscore the fact that social media has arrived in every sense of the word. The BBC has mandated all new staff be literate and skilled in using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter (BBC tells news staff to embrace social media). Likewise, there is a similar directive for the British spy agency MI5: MI5 dumps spies who can’t use Facebook and Twitter.

That’s What I Call Library Inspiration!

From Stephen’s Lighthouse, I came across this great image and t-shirt:

And here’s the t-shirt version (it is available for purchase on Cafe Press):

Concordia University embraces open access

Concordia University announced this week that it is adopting an open access policy for its research. According to the University’s press release, librarians played an essential leadership role in this policy:

Gerald Beasley, Concordia’s University Librarian, was instrumental in the campus-wide dialogue on open access that began more than a year ago. “I am delighted that Senate voted to support the recommendations of all four Faculty Councils and the Council of the School of Graduate Studies. There are only a handful of precedents in North America for the kind of leadership that Concordia faculty have demonstrated by their determination to make publicly-funded research available to all rather than just the minority able to afford the rapidly rising subscription costs of scholarly databases, books and journals.”

Further, the university has launched an institutional repository service called Spectrum. At present, it has approximately six thousand dissertations available. The repository is maintained and operated by the library. In reading the Spectrum Frequently Asked Questions, I also came across this statement explaining how open access improves research impact. This is an excellent point to raise as this is an important concern for many researchers.

Question: How does depositing in Spectrum increase research impact?

Research repositories benefit faculty members by bringing about broader dissemination, increased use and enhanced professional visibility of their scholarly research.

When work reaches a wider audience, it often leads to an increase in citations. According to Peter Suber, open access to research publications increases the audience for a work far beyond the audience of any priced journal, even the most prestigious or popular journal. Studies in many fields show a correlation between open access and citation-count increases from 50% to 250%. See this Open Access Citation bibliography.

Congratulations Concordia!

Library of Congress To Acquire Twitter Archive

What an interesting announcement from the Library of Congress! I wonder if the librarians in charge of organizing this archive will make any effort to organize it geographically (e.g. US and non-US) or catalogue it in some other way. In any case, this is a great example of how cultural institutions keep up with social media. I can see value in preserving the archive in its raw form, but some kind of finding aid or navigation tool would be extremely helpful especially for those that want to conduct research using the resource.

Curious to know more? You can read more about the announcement on the Library of Congress blog and also read why the US National Archives opted not to acquire the archive (short answer: they specialize in federal government records).