Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

I am just back from the PSLA Leadership Conference.

Facilitator Celeste Nalwasky led us in exploring paradigm shift and creating a new strategic plan. I’ll write more about that event in a later post. What resonates with me was one younger librarian’s comments.
I’ll try to paraphrase: We’re all doing different stuff. The other school librarians I know are not doing what I am doing. Some don’t even know about the state databases. Some maintain websites and blogs; others do not. Some have seriously retooled; others have not.
So I thought I might enlist you readers in an aggregated response. What should we be doing right now? What should we be planning for? What does a 21st Century librarian look like?

I’d love to compile a list and I volunteer to begin it.

You know you are a 21st century librarian if you . . .

1. Make sure your learners and teachers can access developmentally and curricularly(?) appropriate databases, portals, and websites.
2. Have the skills to create a blog or website to pull together the resources to meet the information needs of your learning community. You organize the Web for learners.
3. Think outside the box about the concept of “collection.” That collection might include: ebooks, audiobooks, open source software, streaming media, and much more!

4. You think Web 2.0. You know the potential new technologies offer for interaction–learners as both information consumers and producers. You are thinking interactive service: materials suggestion forms, book review blogs, online calendars, etc.

5. Consider new interactive and engaging communication tools also for student projects. Are we looking at digital storytelling, wikis, podcasts, streaming video as possibilties beyond paper and PowerPoint?

6. Consider just-in-time, just-for-me learning as your responsibility and are proud that you own the real estate of one desktop window on your students’ home computers 24/7.

7. You are concerned about what you can do that Google cannot. What customized services will you offer that will not be outsourced to Bangalore?

8. You read both edtech journals and edtech blogs, not just the print literature of our own profession. You learn by visiting the webcast archives of conferences you cannot attend.

9. You consider your role as info-technology scout. You look to make “learning sense” of the authentic new information and communication tools used in business and academics. You figure out how to use them thoughtfully and you help classroom teachers use them with their classes.

10. You consider ways to bring experts, scholars, authors into your classroom using telecommunication tools like Skype and Internet2.

11. Grapple with issues of equity. You provide open source alternatives to students and teachers who need them. You lend flash sticks and laptops and cameras and . . .

12. You consider new ways to promote reading. You are exploring downloadable audio books. You (and your students) are creating digital booktalks.

13. Model respect for intellectual property in a world of shift and change. You insist on documentation for media in all formats and recognize the growing number of copyright-friendly portals. You understand Creative Commons licensing.

14. You know this is only the beginning of social networking. Students will get to their MySpace accounts through proxy servers despite any efforts to block them. You plan educationally meaningful ways to incorporate student excitement (and your own) for social networking. This is social networking too!

15. You seek professional development that will help you grow even if you cannot get Act 48 credit (or other credit) for that growth.

16. Even if you are a digital immigrant you learn the language of digital natives AND you consider what you want to unpack from that trunk you carried from the old world. Rigor and information fluency matter no matter what the medium. So do excitement, engagement, and enthusiasm.

Please feel free to add and edit!