Inspiration - Reference Librarian in a Digital World

"Sketchnote" courtesy of Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt, Mindset Blog

Many parts of Theme One, The Foundation of Reference Services, have been an opportunity to reflect on what I know and have been doing for many years in terms of supporting inquiry in both my Social Studies and English Language Arts classrooms.  Most of the definitions and steps required for inquiry were not new to me (I have collaborated with librarians for many years, bringing my classes to our town's public library for many research tasks), but theme one has allowed me to think more deeply about definitions and the inquiry process as a whole.  I also had the chance to explore the website recommended by fellow classmate, Angela Bout, and I love several of the visuals posted by Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt on her website's notebooksketches page.  I've already sent some of these visuals out to staff-members at my school and have had the beginnings of some good discussion about types of inquiry.  I chose to post one of Rebecca's "sketchnotes" here, because it advertises some of the ways in which a TL might support and collaborate with classroom teachers in inquiry.  At my own school I realize I need to work more on building the relationships necessary for increased collaboration.   Advertising what I am able to do is a part of inviting teachers into collaboration.

The last two weeks of theme one have also pushed me into our library's print reference section (a portion of our library I had, up until two weeks ago, somehow managed to avoid).  As I took stock of our print reference collection (located in the bottom half of a single row of shelving), I found what I had already feared - an incredibly aged collection.  Many encyclopedia sets, indexes, fact books, and atlases which date back to the 1970s, and some are even older.  The newest books seem to have been added around the year 2000.  I am left feeling slightly overwhelmed at the task in front of me.  I'm overwhelmed, but am also beginning to feel a little excitement at the idea of really changing the entire layout of the non-fiction collection.  Right now it is crowded into a small space at one dark corner of the library and it is extremely uninviting.  I would like to do the following: 

• extensively weed the non-fiction collection
• move the shelves into a U shaped formation
• place a table and chairs into the middle into a grouping as you can see in the picture I have included below.   
• purchase new(er) reference materials

 Learning Commons Photo by Jolene Finn, ( Santa Margarita Catholic High School, California, USA)

I say, "I would like to" because at the moment these plans are purely hypothetical.  While dreaming of a library which looks something like the photo above (the blue seating is similar to what I have in mind for the center of the reference section), I am a long way from this reality.  We currently share the space with the distance learning teachers (though they will be changing buildings sometime next year).  Also, my administration has given direction to NOT spend any money on our non-fiction collection.  Our entire yearly budget is less than $2000.  It is difficult to justify spending this money on the reference collection when our school district supports a number of digital resources which could provide the same answers to questions found in books.  I don't believe it is realistic to think I will have a functioning print reference section which comes anywhere close to meeting the recommendation of Riedling chapters two to eight, or the standards outlined in the  Achieving Information Literacy guide. 

As I peruse our incredibly dated print reference section I am also asking myself, who is going to use the updated versions of these if we were to purchase their replacements?  Many of the larger collections are encyclopedias on historical events or time periods.  The Social Studies curriculum at our school is rapidly changing, and I do not know which courses our school will be offering (our student body is far too small to offer more than one or two senior Social Studies courses).  I am mindful of the fact that our reference collection must support both the curriculum and information literacy goals of our school.  Before I begin purchasing replacements for these books I need to have a strong understanding of the curriculum and our information literacy goals.  I will need a vision which is also supported by our administration.  

Some of my reflections this week regarding the increasing digitization of our resource services are as follows:  like Anthony W Marx, the president of New York Public Library, I believe the digital age is bringing about "the greatest opportunity in the history of libraries....[T]his institution ... beloved by millions of people is ... at a moment of revitalizing itself fundamentally....The library is a repository of information, and a sharing, and providing of access to information, and [a] guide to using it" ("Libraries in the 21st Century:  The Struggle Between Perception and Reality").  The gradual loss of print reference resources is not necessarily a threat to libraries.  Rather it is a chance to redefine how libraries function and to meet the needs of patrons differently with more emphasis on  "guiding" patrons to find and use information, and "sharing" this information once it is found.  The "guiding" directly pertains to our discussions on inquiry models, while the "sharing" connects to our potential use of information for Wikipedia or other crowd sourced sites (these sites are not only sources of information, but places where information is collectively shared), as well as sharing in any number of other ways and for other purposes.      

Work Cited

Bathurst-Hunt, Rebecca.  "Sketchnotes" Inquiry Teacher. Web. Rebeccabathursthunt.com.
        2019. Accessed 15 January 2019. 

Canadian Association for School Libraries.  Achieving Information Literacy Standards for 
        School LIbrary Programs in Canada.  The Canadian School LIbrary Association and 
        the Association for Teacher- Librarianship in Canada. 2003. Accessed 18 Janurary 
        2019. 

Quezzaire, Pilar. "Libraries in the 21st Century:  The Struggle Between Perception and 

         Reality." The IB Community Blog. Web Blog Post. ib.org. 23 February 2018. Accessed

         20 January 2019. 

Riedling, Ann, Reference skills for the school library media specialist: Tools and tips, 

        (Third Edition). Santa Barbara, LA: Linworth, 2013.