Tag Archives: #VISLibrary

All things Vientiane International School Library.

Complex Systems, Connectivism, Library Management, Technology

Rebranding libraries 2 : in with new, in with the old.

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Social media and new digital channels ensure that our connected world is always evolving. Branding in the commercial environment is no longer about projecting a message to an audience, it is about connections between people. This is where the traditionally commercial role of branding and the role of libraries converge. Libraries are still about books, knowledge and ideas but both the format, the medium and the modes libraries work across have expanded exponentially. imageEmbedded in this expansion are the ways in which the library connects with people and more importantly, the ways the library connects people-to-people, ideas-to-ideas, needs-to-needs. Advertising agencies are no longer isolated in silos working to a brief provided by a company CEO, they are getting into the shoes of a company and into the shoes of the customers, connecting networking, working across platforms, focusing their message, and co-creating with their clients.
This is where libraries have always been and where they are ideally placed to meet the needs of patrons in a connected world. For libraries, branding is an important piece to this puzzle and is an often neglected one. Branding a library is not about projecting a new modern face and it is not about sending the right message. The message is what libraries do. In this context, branding is about making connections between what people do and what libraries do. imageLibraries do things in society that no other organisation or system does. Libraries offer an experience, a collaborative space, an inspiration, and a story that no other physical or virtual space offers. Leveraging branding and marketing strategies offers useful insights into how libraries can make more authentic and meaningful connections within the community.

 

Some lessons from the world of marketing

1. Research

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Agency, Inquiry, language, Library Management, literacy, Multiliteracies

Student Agency : revisiting “Choice Words” by Peter Johnston

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Building a sense of learner agency in the library begins now.

(1700 words)

Whenever I consider the concept of student agency I am always drawn back to “Choice words : how our language affects children’s learning” by Peter H. Johnston, 2004. In particular, chapter 4 “Agency and becoming strategic”, in a very concise & practical way clarifies what student agency is, what it looks like and how we can have a powerful impact on learning.

“Children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals. I call this feeling a sense of agency.”

“The spark of agency is simply the perception that the environment is responsive to our actions, and many researchers argue that agency is a fundamental human desire.”

Choice Words : How our language affects children's learning
“Choice Words : How our language affects children’s learning” by Peter Johnston

“This desire for agency persists throughout life and is so powerful, that when people feel there is no relationship between what they do and what happens, they become depressed and helpless.”

“Teachers’ conversations with children help the children build the bridges between action and consequence that develop their sense of agency. They show children how, by acting strategically, they accomplish things, and at the same time, that they are the kind of person who accomplishes things.”

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Agency, Complex Systems, Connectivism, Embodied Mind, Library Management, Multiliteracies, Participatory culture, Proxemics, Technology

Proxemics and The Embodied Mind: The hidden dimension of learning.

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(1500 words)

img_6512There are two fields of study that I would like to bring together to create a deep but accessible framework to examine the impact of the environment on student learning. Of particular interest to me is the impact of the presence books on learning in combination with other technologies however this framework could be applied to many other aspects of the learning environment.

  1. Proxemics
  2. The Embodied Mind.

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Agency, Complex Systems, Library Management

Student Agency: A Paradigm Shift in the Role of the Library in Learning

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(1779 words)

A core belief in my approach to the role of the library in learning is that it involves empowering student and teacher agency. In many respects, libraries still retain the traditional pillars of library service, expertise and resources (see the IFLA School Library Guidelines) and continue to stand strongly behind ideals such as freedom of information and freedom of human expression. The required paradigm shift in the role of the library comes when we consider how the learning community is empowered to engage with the library. The basis for this paradigm shift embodies the very meaning of learning. That is, simply learning the content and ideas that the library hosts is not enough but learning how to access these ideas is critical. Many traditional approaches to learning in the library do aim to support this process of learning however in reality, many patrons feel that the library is a closely controlled and a fiercely protected space that is

VIS librairy
Putting the technology in the hands of the students to search the library catalogue enables them to control what they access in the library. The catalogue app displays book covers making choice intuitive.

dominated by librarian-mediated access. Often, as a revered space, there can be a heavy sense that the administration of an ordered library is the most important feature of the library experience. These traditional features of the library remain important but we need to ask which of these features dominate the culture within the library itself and the culture surrounding the library. I wrote a post a while ago about the perfect library and posed the idea that it is about focus and getting the balance right to ensure the library is achieving the key outcomes it is striving for. Student agency is one of those critical outcomes that must define how we go about running our libraries.

Student agency refers to a sense of ownership, independence and self determination that leads a student to feel empowered to take action. In the learning context this looks like a student who feels supported and secure enough to take risks, to ask questions, to fail, to apply critical analysis and take action based on their understandings and beliefs. Choice is crucial to a sense of agency. In contrast, narrow, authoritarian and predefining contexts curtail this sense of independence and limit student influence over the process of learning. Building a sense of agency in our students is integral to developing an inquiry learning context based on questioning, critical analysis, meta-cognition, reasoning, problem solving and creativity.
Coming back to the role of the library in learning, student agency clearly becomes a necessary focus that defines how we run a library. Where job descriptions for librarians can look more like a manifesto of the modern cosmopolitan superhuman the key to unlocking these documents is to discern which of this list of positive attributes, skills and tasks will have the most profound impact on student agency and therefore learning.

Each element of the role of the library is important and should define the role of the librarian however not in equal proportions.

Trying to achieve all of these guidelines and expectations in equal measure is neither realistic nor desirable. An example may help to illustrate what I mean. These may be controversial for some readers so if you feel I am being unbalanced here, please respond and enter the discussion.

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Library Management

Rebranding libraries

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(1651 words)

There are many aspects of modern libraries that are agreeable elements incorporating the more traditional aspects of libraries that to a greater or lesser extent are well accepted. What we need in libraries is a vision that not only encompasses these elements but extends and challenges the current paradigms that have defined libraries. Changing the name to a “learning commons” or “hub” is an attempt to do this but the change needs to come in the culture around libraries and the dialogues that happen around libraries (and often exclude libraries). Libraries are already the most trusted institution ahead of the military, the police, small businesses, and religious institutions (Pew Research Center ) so we mess with this brand at our own peril. We need to rebrand the library by redefining our relevance in the modern information landscape. Here are some ideas that can help libraries to do this.

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Library Management, Publishing, Technology

Future libraries : what publishing trends and book sales tell us about the future of libraries

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Why understanding trends in publishing and book sales matters to school libraries.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post titled “The Post Digital Library: Toward the Hybrid Library” that was aimed at challenging the assumption that print is becoming increasingly irrelevant in an increasingly connected world. I would like to take this idea a little further to dig deeper into the data that underpinned this initial post. I fully recognise that the moment this post is published that the data will be outdated however the big idea is that we need to beware of our assumptions when making decisions about the future of our libraries. Up until this point, this is data that has not been brought into discussions about the role of the library in the school setting. This is a profound oversight that we can begin correcting now. While much of the data I present is based on the Nielson Bookscan research the initial prompt to find data about book sales came through information feeds I follow from a broad range of sources in the publishing sector that seemed to be indicating that the digital revolution has not changed publishing in the way we may have expected a decade ago. The more I read, the more I came to realise that the digital and print information landscape is far more nuanced than I imagined. This spurred me into searching more deeply to find definitive information to determine if the general impressions I was detecting were in fact real. The Nielson research I present therefore represents a concise summary of the trends in publishing and book sales that I have noticed both in my own experience within our own school library and within reports from around the world.

One important caveat is that to extrapolate the data I present too far would also be in error. I hope to simply present the numbers as published from a range of sources to challenge the assumptions we may have and cause us to reconsider our understandings about the role of the library. There are endless methodological issues, causal factors and compounding elements that account for the details of the data I present however it is not my intention to critique the data, simply to present it. If you find some of the data particularly interesting, the links provided will give you the opportunity to dig a little deeper. This post will also deliberately steer away from a discussion of the nostalgic features of print that these conversations will often include because, while I could write much about this (see my post on books as concept manipulatives), in management discussions where budgets are on the line and big decisions about the development of the school library are being made, appealing to emotional arguments can (rightly or wrongly) undermine the credibility of a proposal for further investment in the library.

My hope is that you will find this data reassuring but also challenging and inspiring. By presenting data that makes us stop and think for a moment, I hope that this post will stimulate a vibrant discussion about the role of the library in schools. Let’s begin.

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language, literacy, Multiligualism, Multiliteracies

Fast Food Literacy Programs

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This post will not be surprising coming from a librarian but still, it needs to be said. I call it Fast Food Literacy (#FastFoodLiteracy). I am talking about the prepackaged and heavily marketed reading programs produced by the big educational publishers. They are attractively packaged and so convenient that a school can purchase a large levelled reading set or online program at the push of a button. In contrast, to build a library collection of a similar size takes many hours of carefully reading reviews by trusted sources and researching authors to ensure the very best of what the world has to offer in literature is available to the students when they need it. A library collection built in this way is also tailored to suit the unique needs of that school community. How could a generic levelled one-size-fits-all reading package possibly meet the needs of every school community around the world?

The corporatisation of education through fast food literacy programs

The analogy with fast food seems so obvious when reading sets arrive in their brightly coloured cardboard prboxes with the easy access flip-lid.

This corporatisation of education is extremely concerning on many levels. The pleasure of reading is transformed into a literacy commodity purchased for consumption. Students are placed on a conveyer belt in production line of literacy education. The sell is that it is personalised or differentiated with the subtext that if you are really serious about literacy education, regardless of what you are doing now, you need the proprietary package. The branding instills a sense of security that is based on marketing strategies rather than a deeper concept of literacy. Schools earnestly striving to demonstrate that they take literacy seriously are drawn to this sense of security in a brand because it is a tangible  but this security is shallow and false. The approach of Jim Cummins builds a far more sophisticated view of literacy and language that has relevance to a world wrestling with multiculturalism, plurilingualism and diverse semiotic codes.  Among the most worrying concerns is that the corporately driven programs turn the focus from building student agency to a model where students are programmed. Student agency is replaced by response to stimuli (at best). Literacy is removed from the learning environment and diced up into fragmented chunks. There are so many unchallenged assumptions in this approach that it is hard to know where to start (or finish). I would also bundle textbooks in with these fast food curriculum resources but that is another discussion. In contrast, reading that is embedded in rich contexts of inquiry ensures that meaningful understandings are built and endure. “Learning happens best when learners construct their understanding through a process of constructing things to share with others.” (Jonan Donaldson). This is entirely absent in the fast food reading programs and textbook curricula.

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Uncategorized

What is “The Library Element”?

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Welcome to new The Library Element blog. I have poured myself into renovating, developing, refining and honing our library here are Vientiane International School. After often being asked about the redevelopment process, I have decided to begin The Library Element to document and share the many details and facets about the what, the how and, most importantly, the why behind what we have done. Please feel free to contact me if you have any comments or questions about anything you read on The Library Element.

So why “The Library Element”? The word “element” has multiple meanings in different contexts so it is suitably ambiguous for the purposes of considering the many different elements of the library.

We can find ourselves in our element in the library. The library is a unique space not found in other physical or social structures in our community.

Never understimate the significance of the library element in our communities. The connection between student achievement across all ages and a well resourced library with professional staff is unarguable. The correlation has been reinforced through numerous studies [ala; alsa; NY Comprehensive Center; IOE London]. We are not just talking about student achievement but also a personal and community sense of wellbeing is enhanced by the presence of a cultural centre such as the libary. Without the library element we begin to lose the very fabric of our community and society as a whole.

The library is an element in our community that cannot be reduced to a simpler form. In fact the role of the library in the information age has only expanded [New literacies; IASL; ASLA Learning without frontiers] .

The library is a primary constituent of our society. There is a reason why any despot, tyrant, marauder or dictatorship targets the destruction of the library as a means for control and the suppression of independent thought and free speech [Books on Fire].

Welcome to The Library Element.

Philip

Element: Oxford dictionary (British & World English)

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