Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

I’ve been laying up awake nights worrying about how the whole wiki book movement will evolve. And then, suddenly last night, I woke up thinking that the movement will require prototypes–ways to show teachers that we could share in powerful, perhaps international ways. And then it occurred to me that the way to start best, was to start close to home.

Wikis are about collaboration; so are teacher librarians!

And so I would like to propose we all work together on a teacher-librarian wiki. I put a very basic frame up: http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbwiki.com/

Please join me in sharing and owning this project. My wiki skills are quite weak. I invite you to redesign, reinvent, share what you’d like to share in this space. I also invite those of you, who like me are new to wikis, to use this space as your sandbox, to learn here and then create wikis that make sense for your own learning communities.

I would love to see a space where practicing teacher-librarians, library educators, and preservice librarians could build on each others’ best work. A place to go when reinventing the wheel is just not practical.

This wiki is open and the password is “dewey.” Over the next weeks I will be shifting some of my favorite stuff (especially links) from my own pages to the wiki. Join me?

Will you think less of me if I don’t always blog both ways? I worry that I am the only one thinking retroWeb thoughts and I am afraid to share them. 

Web 2.0 / Library 2.0 is a powerful movement that offers great power for users, and for librarians, and for the growth of libraries.  Most days I feel part of the movement.  Most days I am thrilled by it.

While I am excited about discovering my voice in this blog, and as I build wikis and other things interactive, I prefer some of my communications to be slightly more static. 

In our blogevangelism, I fear we may lose sight of the importance of schema for young people.  Some things–like catalogs and parts of library interfaces–may be more useful when they stay put, when they remain familiar for users.  While I am adding elements of interactivity to my old-fashioned pathfinders, I am not sure I am ready to throw those robust babies out with the blogwater.

I also worry that in our passion to share the excitement we feel for this medium, we may force bloggers to blog before their time.  I speak as one who failed miserably twice before discovering a voice and a purpose and an audience.  Those early blogs went nowhere.  Perhaps, I needed those two public failures and frustrations. Perhaps I should have waited. 

Colleagues quietly confess to me that they want to blog, that they feel guilty that they don’t blog, that they feel on the outside looking in on this movement.  But they have no idea what to say or whom to say it to.  I suggest they might not actually NEED to blog themselves.  Or maybe there are more pressing needs–visiting classes, lessons, family, etc. 

Should they want to demonstrate constructive use of this tool, they may not really need to hurry to find their own voice.  They might help a teacher set up a journal/blog project for learners or help a teacher get started.  Gigi Lincoln, my colleague and fellow cohort member, brilliantly began her Night Blog http://nightwiesel.blogspot.com/ with true inspiration. I am proud of my helping my colleague Sarah create her Hurston Blog http://hurston.learnerblogs.org. 

For those of you pressured to blog, I say don’t push.  Wait.  The inspiration will hit.  The right project will come along. The right issue or user group will face you.  It is not necessary to blog before your time.