Indianapolis Museum of Art

We slept in and left Anderson in a torrential rain--something they desperately needed. Got to the museum as it opened at 11a. My sister, Ruth, a photographer, had worked there 20 years managing the rights to reproduce images from their collection. She loved her work and loved the museum. And their collection is wonderful. Jessie said that the Chicago Art Institute had paintings by famous artists but they were not necessarily good representations of the artist's work. In Indianapolis, she saw lesser known works by well known artists but the works did reflect what the artist was known for. She was pleased to see what they had, including three by Georgia O'Keefe. She also enjoyed (as did I) Indiana's own TC Steele. So we had a good visit. I hadn't donated to the museum on Ruth's death so I made a point of Christmas shopping today in their gift shop and found for myself some lovely turquoise. So we have paid our respects.

Jessie also found us a great pizza place downtown with good food and free copies of The Onion. We both decided we'd been too long from home and healthy eating so we continued on to Cincinnati but will head home tomorrow. I've already picked out a kayak trip and am wrestling with the electronic maps to take the backroads home. So this is the last of the blog until the next adventure. We'll be meandering home down Federal 52 along the Ohio River--going to Carolina in our minds until we get there. Can't wait. 

Intergenerational Communication and MEBates again on Marketing for Introverts

Two good sessions today. I'm in Anderson, Indiana, very late after a wonderful visit with an old college chum I hadn't seen in person since I'd graduated back in the time of Pangea. So this will be quick.

The first session was on intergenerational communication. Basically, after much discussion and brainstorming with the group, the speaker concluded that generations are only the context, not the core issue. Intergenerational differences are as old as humans, the current situation seems to be a transition between an Industrial Age mindset and an Information Age mindset and that culturally, we haven't all made the transition to the new age.  She says that a failure to communicate is the root of all office problems and that we can overcome that by making the effort to ask questions of and getting to know our co-workers. She also says that managers need to be explicit in stating their expectations. The core behaviors expected of all employees of any generation center around a) manners and kindness b) pride in one's work and c) willingness to be of help and service.  Defining these norms for the workplace, communicating them clearly, and being willing to put self aside to listen to one another are key. She offered a handout that included the four steps to good communication. 

The second session was another by Mary Ellen Bates on marketing for introverts. Boy I'm whupped. Hope this makes sense. A lot of this is about carefully choosing words. The idea is to talk about what you value in ways that are authentic and come from the core of why you love what you do. The other part of this is to NOT talk about features (ie. what services the library offers) but to ALWAYS talk about benefits to the listener. 

So if conversation is a ping pong game, when someone asks you what you do, don't say "I'm a librarian"--that stops the ball. The best response is to say, "I just love my job, and this past week I got to do (this really cool thing)  that resulted in helping someone (do this)." This gives the other player something about you to be interested in and wanting to learn more.

She also said to never say you went to library school, always reply that you went to graduate school as folks give that more weight. It's all about being conscious of assigning meaningful value to what we do.

Ie. Don't say "We do online searching" or talk about "search results". Instead, "We do in depth searching for content Google can't find". Search results are "information analysis". Other good phrases include:

• We bring insights from the outside
• We go deeper than Google to bring you analysis you can use
• We deliver information when decisions need to be made
• We make critical information findable
• We reduce risk through better understanding
• I help people find and use information
• I enable staff to work more strategically/effectively/efficiently

I'm sure you get the drift. She also suggested having prepared in advance a three sentence elevator speech for when someone asks what you do based on real events you've made anonymous. 1) Give a one sentence description of a client's situation 2) Give a one sentence description of your deliverable 3) End with a one sentence description of what the client was able to do with the information. So when someone asks what you do, you can say, "Let me tell you what I just did . . . 1) 2) 3)

And if that makes sense you are a better man than I am. Hitting the hay. It was a great conference. I learned a lot about better clarifying to others what I do and why it matters whether it is reporting carefully thought out metrics that illustrate the value of my work, or answering a casual question at a party. We covered a lot of ground about making our work meaningful to others. We'll talk more about it Monday. The rest of this week is vacation.

Miss you all!

  The Cochrane Collaboration

The symbol for the Cochrane Reviews (above) is the two Cs for Cochrane Collaboration but the graph in the middle represents an early review on the benefits of giving steroids to mothers who are delivering pre-term. This review changed clinical practice and saved babies lives. A Dr. Scherer of the Cochrane Center gave an excellent history and overview of the CC. Our friend, Claire, from APLIC, was a co-presentor as she does searches for Cochrane Reviews and will be a wonderful resource when Allison begins helping Dalia with the reviews she hopes to do. Fortunately for us, The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions as well as training videos are available online. In-person training is available twice a year through the US Cochrane Center if we need it. Review Manager is their online software and template for preparing reviews. ARCHIE is an online directory of collaborators and a file sharing site--all available on the Cochrane site.

The United States Government has published Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews. If we don't have it we should probably order it. I'm sure Dalia is very familiar with all of this, and Allison, the online materials are all available when you need to start checking them out. Knowing Claire was just an email away was the best news.

They think of the dangdest  things here . . .

I'd not seen one of these before. It's in the bathroom stall. You strap your young'un to it so you can set a spell in peace. Wrigley's gum is made in Chicago and the Illinois SLA has 500 packs of it to pass out. And apparently McCormick Place is famous for several dancing fountains. Here is another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mniFFtW17TY&feature=plcp

It's been a learning experience on multiple levels.  Oh, and it Guy Sinclair, not St. Claire. I was tired last night.

Mary Ellen Bates spoke again this morning as my 8a session. Her title was From Info Pro to Info Hero: Five ways to turn info into insight. It was an excellent expansion of her 15 minute presentation last night. My instructor, Ellen Dickey, at CCCC put me on to Mary Ellen years ago and I've watched her with interest. Apparently so have many others. You can see from the pix that it was standing room only. She talks about how important it is to add value to your work by asking these questions during the reference interview:

• How could I make this more useful to you?
• What can I do to help you accomplish that?
• What else can I do to make this more valuable?

She says to be a taste pushy and use the marketing tool FUD if necessary (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)--by asking quietly, "You used Google for THAT?!" and follow up with "Could I send you what I would have found?" if needed.

She says each reference report needs to begin with a statement of the question and then, "Interestingly, I found that . . ." by highlighting what was important and also where there were gaps. She also urges using visuals as often as possible, lots of white space, and offering to use the client's template if it is helpful. She emphasized again that the format of the results should reflect the quality of the work--ie. like not wearing flip flops to a job interview. 

She suggests three word cloud generators as a great way to emphasize aspects of the results (with some weeding of the obviously overstated words).

• wordle.net
• worditout.com
• tagxedo.com

And she says if you are doing something for the first time and are a bit uncertain, tell you client you'll do a beta version and see how it comes out. Most folks get that and will accept that response. 

The 11a session on KM Across the Health Care Spectrum was not so helpful. Mostly the three panelists emphasized that the KM terminology is murky and success with KM initiatives in HC settings, which often have a lot of turnover, are culturally dependent and a Sisyphean task. One noted that it takes 17 years to ingrain a new best practice in patient care and that while 94% of businesses recognize the need for KM, 70% of KM initiatives fail. I am bringing home a bibliography of recommended readings but two books were particularly called out and Kerry may want to look into ordering them if we don't have them:

• Bennis: Tribal Leadership
• Rearden: It's All Politics

I'm pretty burned out at this point--four days of listening to folks struggling with developing professional recognition in an ungrateful world (after four years of graduate school emphasizing the same) is wearing thin.

I skipped the 60 Apps in 60 Minutes mostly because we don't use a lot of apps and we probably were only interested in about 8 of the 60 Web Sites in 60 Minutes and I wasn't sure how much more I could get in my head. I'll hit the Cochrane Reviews session at 4p and that's it for today. One or two sessions tomorrow and I'm off for Ft. Wayne. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI1SswI9Mzk&feature=plcp
YouTube link to fountain video. How do they do this??

Craaaaaaaazy

I hope the video of these crazy fountains comes through. They send pieces of water through the air. Amazing. But (and) not as amazing as the figs wrapped in bacon served during the afternoon reception. All work and no play tomorrow--the reception break this afternoon was really appreciated. 

I got to hear Mary Ellen Bates in the Factiva booth. She's written about Free vs Fee information http://www.factiva.com/campaigns/2011/infopro/?from=econtent_bnrad_infopro14nov2011 . The article is titled The True Value of Information: Making the case for value-added aggregators. She offers this article to justify to management the cost of database access and she notes that no one can get unfiltered data from Google any more (she had several friends do the same search from differing IP addresses and they all got different results in Google News). Anyway, she does suggest checking out PLoS. She reiterates everyone else here about tying reference responses to mission values but made some additional good suggestions. She said that during the reference interview we needed to ask how the information will be used and to try to look for ways to add value in mission alignment. She also said that our reference responses needed to be presented in a format that implies value. I think we discussed how at CCL, there was a standard reference format for reference responses, and if they were printed out, they used letterhead. The idea was that the appearance of the report--electronic or paper--reflected the value of the information enclosed--like wearing the right clothes to a job interview. This would be simple enough for us to do and I think really would add value to what we send out, just in terms of readability. Some of our cut and paste-ings are pretty awful to read and look really haphazard.

The final session from today was on Web Scale Discovery, "discovery" being the new, cool term for search.  Apparently there are vendors now who are aggregating content that includes both a library's catalog and the content of its databases so that all can be searched from a single search box. Large university libraries are migrating to this search type and some are hiring "ethnographers" to study how faculty and students interact with the search software. Most of this talk was about how to identify a good vendor, test products and what the ethnographer needs to do. Not exactly our cup of tea, but interesting to know its out there and what the promises/pitfalls are.  Andrew Asher has created a toolkit for evaluating how to improve a user interface we may want to read at some point that has come out of some of this new interface development.

Off to supper at Lloyd's (on Lower Wacker Drive, of all places ??!!??) with an old school chum from high school and college. 

Fountain of Knowledge

Jessie is at the Art Institute today. This is the view from the front of the Conference Center out to the Lake. 

My 8a session was on Taxonomy Design. I thought I was going to learn something about creating a taxonomy. I was disappointed to learn that he was not going to address creating taxonomies, rather he was talking about designing a taxonomy project. But (I mean AND) my disappointment disappeared because what he gave was an excellent talk on project management. He gave me lots of ideas for organizing the EndNote project. I took more notes about my ideas than about what he described, but (oops, AND) it was a good session. I learned what a Swim Lane Plan was and also what a RACI Plan was and they may prove useful herding our particular group of cats.

The next session was Guy St. Claire talking Knowledge Management. It started at 10a. After about 20 minutes, I slipped out to a 10:30a session on 60 Sites in 60 Minutes. Mr. St. Claire's talk sounded more like a cheer-leading session than something informational and I think I made the better choice. The speakers went through 60 online tools, all of which were very interesting, a few of which may be really useful to us personally and professionally. KLOUT tracks and evaluates your web presence on social media. If COMMS isn't using something like this, they make like to know about it. TEKSERV buys and resells Apple Products (this one is for the kids and their old iPods or new toys they'd like to buy). KNOEMA is a dataset site we need to explore. The AARP Bookstore has lots of Wiley books (including the Dummies series) for free check out. STILLNESSBUDDY provides stress relief at the computer. And EUTOPIC archives web links and screen captures for future reference. I currently use Delicious, but this one sounds like it holds more  types of information and may be more sophisticated.

I do wish Julia were here to help me discern what is really useful to us in terms of the vendor booths. I don't want to bring home a lot of junk, but don't want to miss something really useful. I have been to the NLM booth and praised their PubMed training we just took and got a list of their mobile apps. I went by WTCox and thanked them for their good service. But I'm not seeing a lot of new stuff (which I hope means we really are on top of things). I did pick up a brochure on an elegant table top scanner for digitizing documents with some sophisticated software for archiving. 

I also talked with the Freepint.com folks who "publish practical articles and reports about information practice, content and strategy".  There is some free content on their site that may indicate how useful the subscription might be. I also spoke with a women from Eastview.com. These folks aggregate statistics and also obtain in-country publications and government documents for countries ranging from Eastern Europe through the Middle East, Asia and North Africa. She's to send me some links.

I skipped my session on the history of Chicago, having had the boat tour. Headed back shortly for a 4p session on Web-Scale Discovery Implementation with the End User in Mind. I can't wait ;-)

Chinatown

My old college chum, Kathy, is now a PhD psychologist doing neurofeedback here in Chicago. I get to see her occasionally when she visits with her mother in a retirement community in Lexington, NC. Her mother is a librarian and it's always a treat to visit with them. Kathy's  husband is Chinese and sailed in the Merchant Marine before settling in doing mechanical work for a local private school. He's retired now but they both have interesting tales to tell. So Kathy offered to take us to Chinatown to visit the local shops. I have a new Buddha figurine and a Tshirt for Ben. Local restaurants fill their windows with food. Chinese epicure shops offer exotic ingredients, including dried abalone for $830/lb. I settled for a wonderful watermelon ice at lunch. 

Her husband is a wonderful cook. I asked her if he shopped here to buy his ingredients. So she took me to his favorite grocery store and among many other things, this is what we saw: 

The frogs were the size of softballs. There were crabs, eels and a wide variety of fresh and dried fish. They also had turtles and conch shells with the critter in them. 

Fortunately, the Taste of Chicago reception at the conference was much more normal fare. I ran into Mary Lane and had a good chat with her. I also caught a glimpse of Kei Malesky (I did tell you I had a quilting class with her sister-in-law at the Folkschool?). Didn't see anyone else I knew but specifically went to the InMagic booth and shook hands with Mike Segur's boss and told him how great Mike was and how grateful we were to have his help.  

Since I'm moving and have a taste of environmental concern, I've not been grabbing "gimme" items from the booths. And I'm trying to be judicious with brochures. But I am scanning for useful things tho so far, I've not seem much that relates to us that we don't know about already.

Still, lots of excitement. The place does not seem very full considering the size of the hall. I suspect folks are still arriving. We'll know tomorrow. 

Sessions begin at 8a. and end at 5:30p. We've been invited to supper with another school chum from high school and college who lives in Racine, WI now and will take the train in to meet us at a nearby restaurant. We'll get a real taste of Chicago then and a good visit. 

Looking for new insights . . .

Measures that Matter

This morning we attempted to drive to the Field Museum and find the parking deck for the Navy Pier. The traffic was impossible, the road construction baffled the GPS and the conclusion was to go back to the hotel and let Jessie take the bus after lunch to the Aquarium near the Field Museum. After my class we set out again for the Navy Pier where we had tickets to take a sightseeing boat up the Chicago River and take in the architecture. The time frame required taking the car again, but after some librarianly research, we had a way around the construction and made it handily to the dock. I really don't travel well and navigating the food situation is almost as stressful as the crazy traffic, but the river trip was wonderful and well worth it. The buildings are spectacular, the river is the place to see them, the evening was lovely and cool.

My class today was excellent and has left me convinced we need to totally rethink the data we collect and also the services we provide. She said so much it will be hard to summarize--little things like always saying "and" instead of "but" because "but" is a negative turn-off and "and" connects ideas in a positive way. And big things like aligning services AND metrics carefully--and after investigation and conversation with decision makers about their views on the organization's larger goals--to reflect and enhance the organizational goals. Every service we offer needs to answer the question "What difference does it make?" and each service needs to have metrics designed into it from the beginning that track goals and demonstrate that difference.

The process of designing meaningful metrics begins with understanding their context in relationship to the organization's goals, passing through the development cycle on the left and ending with communicating results to stakeholders only in terms of how the library has met the larger goals.

She stressed the importance of NOT focusing on stats except to use them internally to improve service, but to report the impacts of library services--qualitative rather than quantitative values.

She also noted that librarians take on new roles without giving up anything and can end up off track and not doing the important things well. Which is why she stressed evaluating services against the organizational goals and being willing to lay down those that don't directly relate. She said by demonstrating the choice to build services that are truly in mission alignment, the remaining services are more highly valued by management.

She talked about Balanced Scorecard evaluation and the Logic Model, but the bottom line was that everything we do has to positively answer the question, "What difference does it make?" and any metric we collect has to demonstrate that it does make a difference. As we are committing to taking on new and more projects--Endnote, photo archives, wikis, Spanish web portal, I think we really need to focus on these question before we commit to these projects. AND we need to follow her advice about designing metrics at the outset that demonstrate value and set specific targets and goals to assure we are on track.

I really am concerned we are overreaching in our commitments and would encourage us to pause and take the time to do this evaluation. We have not in the past, as in other organizations, been challenged to justify our work, but we are undergoing changes in management and funding and I think it would be smart of us to be ahead of this curve. I volunteer the barn for a planning retreat.

On this note, Jessie is headed downstairs for a Corona for us to split and hit the hay. Short session tomorrow then two beastly long days on Mon & Tues. Will try to keep it succinct.

We made it!

Still learning how to use GasBuddy, we bought gas where we could easily get on and off the highway. The traffic was surprisingly heavy. Those population scientists may be on to something . . .

We are on a nosebleed floor in the Hyatt attached to the McCormick Place Convention Center tho attached is a loose interpretation. (The elevators consistently pop our ears and one of them sticks on the 27th floor) It might be a mile from our room to the SLA section of this place which probably is as big as a small NC town. You can get there from here, and do it indoors, but I'm glad I brought my walking shoes. We did walk the building tonight to locate my class tomorrow, the registration area, and food vendors. The place was totally empty except for a couple of security guards. It absolutely dwarfs the place we were for APLIC in DC. I'll be curious to see it busy and full tomorrow. 

Folks have been basically friendly and helpful. There is a Metra station in the building for Jessie's convenience. The reservation was garbled and lots of incidentals will be automatically charged to the room so Gina and I will have a good chat over my checkbook when I get back. And I may be able to talk them into parsing it all out before I check out on Wednesday. At this point, I'm glad they figured out how to give us the same room all 5 days so I wasn't going to be fussy about the bill in that moment. So we are here and settling in and making friends with the Concierge.

The trip was mostly uneventful Interstate except for a run through downtown Indianapolis and around the Monument Circle, which Jessie had never seen and I hadn't seen in years. At Christmas, they string lights from the top down to the fountains (the picture is only the base, it is a substantial obelisk) which become skating rinks and they sometimes have horse drawn carriages out. A very good urban revitalization project.

In northern Indiana, in the middle of the BFE, there was an enormous, meandering windfarm with large fields of corn and soybeans underneath. Look closely and you can see windmills to the horizon--it was so in all directions, stuck here and there between fields and barns. Pretty incredible to see, difficult to photograph from the road. But encouraging. I suspect good for the farmers as well as the environment.

So with the time change, I'm off to bed early, Chicago time. See you tomorrow!

Image courtesy of http://DailyClipArt.net

Off to the races!

We are in Lexington, KY not far from Man 'O War Boulevard. It was nearly midnight when we arrived, courtesy of major slow-downs on I-40. The Scootabout did us proud, crossing Black Mountain handily and averaging 38+mpg overall so far. I am amazed that such a little car was not buffeted by the big trucks, she actually feels quite secure on the road. 

But we've crossed other mountains as well and have a few left ahead. Most of them learning curves. I have a relatively new phone which is now loaded with multiple apps for traveling, navigating the conference, and mapping the Chicago Metro. I've loaded templates for my workshops and NCSLA participant lists, hotel and conference registration forms on my laptop. And then there is the issue of actually navigating downtown Chicago and a conference center the size of Staley once we get there. So while I'll be learning about new library technologies in workshops, I'll be learning to use new technologies to get there. And the learning has begun.

What I've learned so far: 

*The hands free phone works great if a) you took the time to actually properly label friends' phone numbers (work, cell, home, etc) when you entered them into your iPhone and b) their names are short and easy to pronounce

*My Garmin GPS works better than the SYNC GPS mostly because it's faster to download and doesn't require a reliable phone connection or a computer to preprogram in advance

*Do NOT try to use voice commands with the GPS on, "Recalculating" seriously messes with the car's limited vocabulary, and when the two are arguing, it's really easy to miss your turn--not unlike having children in the car. Not a happy throwback.

*Many apps do not a consensus make--Ford's expensive SYNC technology offers traffic reports that in no way agree with the free WAZE phone app, which only really works if there is another WAZEr in the area and that person is truthful. Neither one was really accurate and we still got stuck in traffic. Airball for technology.

No rush today. We can't get into our room in Chicago until 3p so we'll mosey up and maybe practice riding the Metro tonight. And checkout GasBuddy on the way . . .

Final Reflections

I opened this blog on May 2, 2009 with the following lyrics from the Grateful Dead, "What a long, strange it's been". I began my educational journey into library science in 2000 courtesy of Central Carolina Community College's LTA program. It's hard to imagine finally reaching the end of my studies--for now. I fully understand that continuing education is a part of the job. But the formal part ends today. Papers have been signed, FAXs sent, a parting luncheon with my internship supervisors enjoyed. Maddie asked me a lunch was the next phase was. I didn't have a lunchtime chit chat reply.


I tentatively have a position in the new joint library that is emerging from the community college library where I currently work as an LTA and the local public library. But I continue to send out job applications, including to K12 settings, until the county commissioners give my new boss a budget and she knows for sure who she can hire and what she can pay. Where ever I end up, I hope the job will always be about education and trying to make a difference to the people I work with and serve.


I think the headline on the latest NCAE newletter, pictured above, says a lot about the tough times educators and librarians of all stripes face in this current economy, and probably always have faced to a degree. Maddie is a good organizer for NCAE and made sure I signed on before I left here. So I've been getting their newsletters and political action alerts for the past several weeks. And based on what I've seen, both at the community college and here at RMS, I've written a few legislators and congressmen, especially about the growing gap in college readiness we see as K12 educators come under increasing pressure from larger class sizes, resource (including media) cuts, and unreasonable testing demands.


Last summer, Maddie gave me her copy of the state IMPACT guidelines to study for my praxis exam. And we read about the IMPACT study results in my last two classes. Great stuff if we had the resources to do it. We know what our kids need, we just lack the will and the means to provide it for them to the degree we'd like. The president of the local community college--the one my son attends as an early college high school student--wrote an editorial in the local paper about how his college may not make their SACS accreditation because SACS wants them to hire more full time faculty and limit them to 15 hours a week of teaching. His response included that there was no way his college could afford to to that under the current state budget and thought it was highly unlikely they could afford it during better times. Another conflict between the ideal and the real.


In my "spare" time, I parent a couple of teenagers. They are themselves making that painful transition to adulthood where the dreams and ideals of childhood meet harsh responsibilities of survival as an adult. A young woman, a former apprentice, came by the house the other evening to share with me the pain of reconciling the dream of the man she'd fallen in love with against the man she'd discovered him to be. In a lot of ways, this transition away from this educational journey feels much the same. All that we've learned and studied about how to be our best versus what money, time, and circumstance will allow. Sort of like being kicked out of the ivory tower and onto the street.


So today, the long, strange trip takes another turn. Well here goes. I'm as prepared as I can be and a pretty stubborn idealist to boot. Thank you for the vision and for all your help. I'll be in touch . . .

AMTR

Apparently, this is the big Kahuna of reports. The state mandated AMTR--Annual Media and Technology Report. Maddie has been laboring over this for days. She showed me the final copy she's getting ready to enter online. Twelve pages of numbers and categories for those numbers. She says the report is fewer pages, but more sophisticated in its questions this year. Several scans of the internet and calls to county tech support to find out exactly which Pentium processors need to be reported where on the sheet. And emails to the warehouse to find out what's on the RMS shelves there. And this after she and Robin have scoured the building to account for all 300+ computers on site.

In reviewing the report I was surprised to find that she has 18 iPods. She can't circulate them to students, but they were purchased with the intent that staff would use them. She hasn't been able to generate interest. When I worked at CCL, we circulated iPods to staff members and couldn't keep them in the library. But we were able to purchase audiobooks related to our leadership/business collection. Staff members listened to them on their daily commute to work and also as they traveled on business. Maddie doesn't have mp3 audiobooks in her budget, tho NCLIVE has just made several hundred available. Maybe once the AMTR is done, we can look at the NCLIVE collection and brainstorm about how to promote them.

But the big point of discussion in our review of her AMTR was her suggestion to ECU faculty that they create a class that focused on the "daily details" of school media that includes record keeping with this type of reporting in mind. As I've listened to Maddie discuss her work over the past couple of years, items like weeding, catalog maintenance, stats, inventory and year end reports have always weighed heavily on my mind. If I do end up in a school setting, my internship has exposed me to them, but I could certainly have used a class detailing best practices for accomplishing them. This is an important gap in my education. As are classroom management and web page design and maintenance. I know ECU can't teach everything, but Maddie's suggestion is spot on. I'm taking an incomplete in this class until my internship is finished as ECU's semester has ended, but I'm so glad to be here at this time to actually see the year-end requirements. Maddie says she's going to tell Dr. Dotson not to graduate me until I come back in August to see how the school year starts. Don't listen to her, Dr. D! (even tho she's probably right . . . )

Water over the dam

Lots has happened since my last blog post. Lots of different things, tying up loose ends and "information gathering" for year-end reports. Robin has been tracking down details of the technology inventory, Maddie has been working on the collection and compiling information into report formats. I've tried to make myself useful where I could.

There has been more proctoring. There was another day of EOGs when I got back from NCLOR training. There has been makeup testing for the students that missed. There was a horrible glitch in the scoring software that left children in tears over low scores that really weren't. Students with low scores are currently in "remediation". Students with good scores are currently in "enrichment". Low scorers will be retested next week. Lots of substitutes in the building while teachers are pulled for remediation. Lots of boxed sets leaving the library and groups doing reports while teachers organize post-EOG enrichment activities. Maddie says when she was in the classroom, she lived for this post-EOG time when she was finally free to do the units she loved that didn't relate specifially to state testing. This year she says teachers have been so stressed with demands throughout the year (I'm presuming because of state shortfalls for materials and staff) that she doesn't see a lot of the "enrichment" she would wish for. Lots more videos scheduled than she'd prefer.

Part of what I have been able to help with is organizing in the collection. Lots of shelf reading and relocating materials. Maddie is moving biography to make room for a "popular" series collection on prime real estate near the library entrance. Lufkin Road, where I interned last, did much the same thing. It helped promote reading by encouraging the popular series books, and once it got readers hooked, helped keep students on track with where they were in the series. She also has a professional development section for teachers, in the back room near the copier. She'd never really had the time to organize it. So after I finished moving and cleaning up the biogrpahy section, this second picture is my version of how the professional development materials work best. The post-its indicate where topic labels need to be made. I do think it will help teachers locate materials for themselves easier. And we found a spare displace unit she's putting right next to the copier to display and promote different resources to pique teacher interest.

Then there was more fun with the bar code reader. I spent much of yesterday on the 6th grade hall during 6th grade prep time trying to locate library materials in empty classrooms--AV materials, library books, maps, and LOTS of dictionaries. Robin says the dictionary buying binge happened the summer her now 24 year old daughter took driver's ed. Someone wanted a hardbound dictionary for each student in the school. Robin spent that summer cataloging and barcoding them. And there's still a stash in each classroom, and several hundred still in the library. I inventoried what I could before planning period was over and students returned to their classrooms. Then the job was walking the halls with a cart asking teachers if their students had library books to return. Maddie says she loses about $2000 worth of library books a year. I felt bad interrupting class to ask for stray books, but only one very tired looking teacher seemed miffed by the request. And I got a lot of books back.

I asked Maddie if she felt I was accomplishing the intent of my internship. Her reply was, "You been immersed into the functioning of the school. This is it." This is it.

NCLOR

I only spent two hours at RMS today, escorting children to the bathroom during the morning test-taking. At 10A I was at Randolph Community College for a day of NCLOR training. My training was offered by my community college, but NCLOR is largely at K12 resource so I was tickled that my training opportunity was during my scheduled internship time--I would not have been able to get off work and attend otherwise.


NCLOR, like NCLIVE and NC-NET, is another wonderful state-sponsored resource for educators. LOR stands for "Learning Object Repository". It is an online archive of lesson plans and multimedia classroom supplements that can be used in the classroom or imported directly into Blackboard or Moodle. Guests may view content that has been created free of charge, but NC educators can (free to them) request a username and password and access purchased content as well. It is hoped that educators across the state will be inspired to add their own creations to share with their colleagues. To this end, there are collaborative functions within the software that will allow teachers in remote locations to co-create new lessons and aids.


The instructor was from the company that created the software, and while he'd worked with the folks in NC who were actually implementing this project, it was evident he was not familiar with NCLIVE and NC-NET. It appears that both these resources may end up linked to NCLOR as well. I hope so. As harried as our faculty seem these days, one stop-shopping could be a real help to them.


Most of us in attendance were community college faculty. I may have been the only librarian. My login sets me up to view most of the collection, with emphasis on community college resources, but I do have access to lots of K12 resources and could request a K12 login at some point in order to see all of them. There was also a lot of professional development stuff, including tutorials for a wide array of Web 2.0 technologies. Maddie wants to brush up on her Web 2.0 stuff over the summer. I've already introduced her to NC-NET. I think she needs this trick in her bag as well.


Last day of EOGs tomorrow. If she's not too pooped at the end of it, we'll sit down and have a look-see. http://www.explorethelor.org/

E O G

While most Protestant churches and some modern Catholics have abandoned the idea of Purgatory, apparently it is still alive and well in the public schools where it exists in under the name E O G. End of Grade testing. A purifying state of limbo one endures for three days in order to pass through the year end gates to summer. While Purgatory was traditionally thought of as not Hell, considerable prayer was still directed towards shortening its duration. This tradition continues during EOG. Particularly on the part of the test administrators and their proctors.

I returned to Randleman Middle School on Tuesday, May 11, just in time for the first day of EOG. I was given a run-through of proctor training and a booklet to read which further explained what I'd just been told. Then I was hustled down the hall to proctor for the 8th grade science teacher administering the 8th grade reading comprehension exam. Clearly she had done this many times before, and with precision and emphasis, delivered the materials and instructions to students and set them to their task. All classrooms had been stripped of their posters and decorations for the occasion and the television monitors in each room ominously reported the time in large numbers. The entire building was in a state of hushed concentration. For 140 minutes (146 counting the two 3 minute breaks), the world stood still while students tested and their testers and proctors tiptoed the aisles looking for misalignment or worse.

I found it nerve-wracking to be so still for so long with nothing to read and nothing to do but watch others concentrate. The test administrator appeared to find it wearing as well, as she looked for ways to stretch and move that were not distracting to the students. And as if this all weren't hard enough, at the end of the testing period, students who had not finished their exam were escorted to the library where they signed in, still in hushed silence, and continued to work under the watchful eyes of Maddie and Robin. Maddie was overwhelmed. In a school of about 850 students, Maddie had well over 50 of them wrapping up in the library. The exams started shortly after 8a. The time on the monitor indicates when the last student finally left.

While we were eating a late lunch in the workroom, the principal came down for a de-briefing. Everyone was surprised at the number of students needing extended time. He expressed the hope that it meant they were all taking the exams seriously and the end result would be better scores. Everyone agreed that accountability was important, but there was much discussion about better ways to achieve it at substantially lower cost (the savings directed towards hiring more staff and improving the education the tests were supposed to evaluate). Apparently, nobody likes the EOGs but the politicians that mandate them and the testing companies that get paid for the tests.

Despite all this, there are two more days to go. As with purgation, we'll hope there's a little redemption at the end.

Board of Education

On April 19, I attended my first Board of Education meeting. Maddie met me there after school. It was a very odd mix of old meets new. With minor changes in dress, it could have been a scene from the 1950's--a moment of silence, a student leading the Pledge of Allegiance, recognition of principals and vice principals, another student singing a popular inspirational song and Amazing Grace, lots of awards certificates punctuated with photos for the local press. The meeting was as much pomp and circumstance as it was business. Only the topics of discussion connected the meeting to the 21st Century.

And sadly, most of those connections were about the current fiscal crisis. On a happier note, year's National Board Certified Teachers were recognized along with the county's winning Battle of the Books team. But then the hard business began. A PTO president rose to speak about staff shortages in his school and the local county NCAE rep urged the county to sign on to a resolution urging the legislature to "Fund Schools First". Lots of Roberts Rules of Order.

I wasn't sitting in a good position to either hear or see. The Board was clearly visible, but guest speakers had their backs to the audience and some of the discussion was too technical and specific for the casual observer. Clearly, reading the newspaper report the next day would have been more informative and we left about half way through the meeting. I did not get a feel for how much the board responded to its visitors--if their concerns were really considered, or just politely listened to. On the surface, the emphasis was on tradition, patriotism, and decorum. What happens beneath that surface, I could not tell from this one visit. Food for discussion when I see Maddie next.

Encouragement

I attend Quaker meeting. The tradition includes sitting in watchful silence until somone is led to speak. This past meeting, it was, among others, me. My favorite Easter story is the last chapter of John--Jesus's final appearance to his disciples. They have fished all night with nothing to show for it. They don't recognize Jesus on the shore but he is waiting for them with a hot breakfast. He encourages them to cast their nets one more time. Which they do, and the story records that their nets were bursting with "great fishes"--enough to have destroyed their nets. But the nets hold and they bring them to shore. With this, they recognize Jesus. As Peter greets him, three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Three times Peter replies to Jesus that he does. And three times Jesus responds, "then feed my sheep"--Jesus's last words on earth to his followers.

Some interpret this as Jesus's command to the church to preach the gospel. Others, of which I am one, believe that he meant exactly what he said--that we are to provide materially for each other as well as spiritually. Jesus spent too much time and energy providing food and healing along with his words for us to think we are not called to do the same.

But for some reason this Sunday morning, the word "encouragement" would not leave me. I lost my older sister a couple of weeks ago. Over these past few years we have been reconnecting after a long absence. And then suddenly she was gone. I've been trying to put into words the space she has left. And it finally came to me, the thing I miss most is her encouragement. We neither one of us got much parental approval growing up. I think she realized, by its absence, what a precious gift it is. So she gave it generously. To me, to my kids, to her children, to her co-workers. In a recent conversation, her husband told me how stunned he was at her memorial to hear people he'd never met talk about what gifts she'd given them, mostly through her encouragement.

For over 25 years, I've taught adults the craft of weaving. But I haven't worked much teaching children and I've never been responsible for disciplining any but my own. So I've been studying Maddie's interactions with them in the library. She can be pretty stern, but even when she is setting limits or correcting them, she offers instruction and encouragement on behaving the right way. And her positive interactions are always about encouraging their interests, asking them to share with her, letting them know by her interest that they matter to her. I am amazed at her attention to this. She has an assistant who works mostly in the back room. Maddie is pretty much the face of the library, and she offers her attention to all 850 children along with all the paperwork, faculty support and technology stuff her job requires. It is likely that her principal will evaluate her based on these last items, but the real power behind her effectiveness as a librarian lies in the little words of interest and enthusiam that she shares with each child. With them she is feeding her sheep.

I don't know how a library program can teach this. Clearly Jesus struggled to convey to Peter the importance of this kind of caring. Now that I am at the end of my library program, with nearly four years of work experience under my belt, I'm certain that I have the professional and technology skills to hold up the technical end of the job. But I'm beginning to understand that everything we've learned in school is not the job--it's only a tool to be used in doing the real job--caring for, encouraging, supporting each other and our community--feeding our sheep.

I've already turned in my portfolio for my degree. It includes, as required, my personal philosophy of library science. But were I to post it now, I think I'd use this quotation I recently came across. It is credited to Bryant S. Hinckley:

"To give encouragement, to impart sympathy, to show interest, to banish fear, to build self-confidence, and awaken hope in the hearts of others, in short--to love them and to show it--is to render the most precious service."

Finding Fossils!

What better way to end the week than to let the kids play in the dirt. Six million year old dirt. With fossils.

At the eastern most tip of Beaufort County lies the tiny town of Aurora, home to a massive phosphate mine. While largely unknown to the rest of the state, researchers from around the globe visit this tiny town to see what the phosphate folks are digging up. Teachers come too, along with the occasional fossil afficionado tourist. For their pleasure and reward, each week the mine owners dump a load of fossil-laden mine tailings (quaintly referred to as "reject") in a pile across the street from the Aurora Fossil Museum, the town's sole attraction. Maddie makes a pilgrimage to Aurora once a year to fill these three plastic buckets for a day of learning and fun with the 8th grade science class. This is her favorite lesson to teach, and despite spending weeks in a foot cast after twisting her ankle on this last trek, she sounded ready to head back for next year's stash.

This past year she brought her elderly mother along who had so much fun dirt-digging she refused to leave until she'd filled the pockets of her housecoat. (Apparently Maddie comes by this love honestly. ) The kids felt this way, too. As soon as she'd dumped a large coffee mug of reject before each student they were into it. And almost immediately you could hear the oohs and aahs of discovery. Twice she'd have students stand up and switch piles with someone else. And with each switch, there were new discoveries.

This lesson is part of a collaborative project with one of the 8th grade science teachers. Each student received a pictoral guide, a zip lock bag, a mug of dirt, and lots of encouragement. Even the teacher couldn't keep her fingers away from the stuff. Maddie began the lesson with a map of NC counties and a quick geography lesson to orient students to the reject's source. She also had a dataprojector set up to explore the fossil museum web page. She used audio/visual aids, textual information, and tactile engagement to anchor the lesson and address multiple learning styles. Switching tables gave the students a chance to stretch and move with a purpose. They were encouraged to speak softly with one another to collaborate on identifying their "finds". And their science teacher assessed them on their participation and deportment. Sure seemed like an A+ lesson plan to me!

Obi-Wan Follette

Who has seen a Star Wars movie and not wanted to be a Jedi Knight or play with a light saber? Well, I came close to it today.

Maddie's library operates on a split schedule--three days fixed and two days flexible. It just so happened that today, there were no scheduled classes in the library. A rare opportunity to catch up on paperwork. She's been explaining to me the year end forms she needs to complete, both for the county and for NCDPI. The big deal now is getting an inventory done and reconciling differences between the shelf list and the catalog.

My job today was to play with the Follette Bar Code Reader. You can see in the picture how she's positioned barcodes on the back of her books. With the flip of a finger, the barcode label is exposed, the Jedi throws back his cape, grasps his weapon. Light erupts from his saber as he wields it with aplomb towards his intended target . . . Oops. I meant, you can aim the targeted red light of the barcode reader at the barcode label, and in a literal flash, have a record of the selected item for inventory.

Maddie's collection contains about 19,000 items, all of which have to be inventoried by the end of the year. I did her entire fiction section today--I'm guessing between 3 and 4000 books. It was fun. (I'm sure it wouldn't be if it were my responsibility for the whole job every year!) After reading several hundred barcodes, I'd take the reader to her computer. She'd download the results into Destiny and any discrepancies would come out in report form. I'd go back and bring her the books in question and she'd set the records straight. What an amazing tool!

Besides having fun, I did learn a few things. At our new library, we'll have a different vendor, but we are supposed to get a similar barcode reader. Placement of the labels is everything. Maddie uses duplicates--one inside the front cover and one strategically placed on the back. Previous librarians have labelled some books in other places. And books that are heavily used often have the back label obscured or torn. Having to use the inside label really slows the process. And labels placed too close to ISBN barcodes can cause misreadings. So we'll talk about this when I get back to my real job.

Another thing I learned today was a whole new meaning for the term "boxed sets". While I played Jedi, Maddie was hard at work cataloging "boxed sets". Certain titles are purchased in sets of 30 or more for classroom use. They are kept in lidded plastic tubs for easy transport to the classroom. But they still have to be barcoded, inventoried and cataloged like everything else. Between new purchases, and correcting a previous staff member's mistakes, there was considerable muttering from behind her desk. I tried not to make like I was having too much fun, but . . . Oh, and did I mention I had a chair on wheels for doing the job? Yippee!!