Edubeacon

‘Just what does it take?’ is a question that has been asked within a number of my professional conversations recently.  As teacher librarians who have been discussing the changing nature of information, its access and impact on the role of the library for some years now, we are wondering what we have to do to bring all school library staff, not just the teacher librarians, to an understanding of the critical state of our school libraries if staff don’t get on board with digital resources including the web.

Airing these thoughts via this blog will not really have much effect because if musings such as this were being read, there would already be an understanding and a knowledge of resources such as those linked on this site, for instance,  the award winning SLAV Bright Ideas blog, Skerricks and so many others others.

Perhaps the SCIS Connections newsletter that has arrived in library mailboxes this week will stimulate some to get onto the computer and explore.  It includes two particularly thought provoking articles, one by US school library director, Doug Johnson entitled Libraries for a post-literate society, and the other by Australian educational consultant Mal Lee – A library without books.  Mal was one of the very early heralds of change in Australian school libraries and has offered much valued insight over the years.

US teacher librarian Joyce Valenza also spoke passionately about the issue in her January blog post Seth Godin, Mike Eisenbery and me on the future of the library which was a response to Seth Godin’s post about the irrelevance of library services in the future.  The conversations are raging but they must move into the school library workrooms where all, yes ALL, current daily practices must be scrutinised for relevance.  SLAV in conjunction with the State Library of Vic will soon offer the Web 2.0 training program for a second time.  Time spent on this program as a library team working and learning together will be time well spent and be of benefit to both school library staff and their role within the school community.

This video provides an interesting perspective on the approach to a print resource by a ‘digital native’.  I really dislike that term but found it most thought provoking to look at a book through this student’s eyes.