Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

I was so flattered to be noticed by the Institute for the Future of the Book Blog yesterday http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2006/08/library_wisdom.html

Ben Vershbow and Bob Stein commented on both my visioning chart and our Virtual Library.

The physical space of the library is still vital too, Valenza argues, and nowhere is this better conveyed than in this charming “virtual library” page she has constructed for the library’s home page (that’s her standing by the reference desk):

It seems almost too obvious to use the physical library as an interface, but I was immediately struck by how intuitive and useful this page is, and how, so simply and with such spirit, it creates an almost visceral link between the physical library and its online dimensions.

Interestingly, I have been spending so much time this summer criticizing my Web work and figuring out how to move the site toward more interactivity. Materials suggestion forms are coming. I’ve prepared new lessons of evaluating blogs as information resources. My new eighth and ninth graders are dying to blog books and I plan to (happily) put them in charge. I am working toward morphing our pathfinders into blogs and wikis to encourage contributions from and collaboration with learners and faculty. I am supporting several teachers–new and old–who are ready to blog and wiki their projects. Several can’t wait to tell digital stories with their students. Clearly, it’s going to be a 2.0 year.
But this post came at the perfect moment. While I struggle with my personal 1.0 vs. 2.0 demons, Ben and Bob pointed to why I am right to hold on to some of what has worked for me for the past ten years–a static, kind of organized, interface. My learners respond to schema, to metaphor. They respond to familiar structure and are accustomed to clicking on links before they load. The library image map represents a customized picture of the information landscape and creates loose knowledge categories, buckets or clusters for learners.

As I move many elements of the site toward interactivity, while I want many elements to be dynamic, I need to be mindful of what I think of as “Rob Petrie” syndrome. (Here I go showing my age again!)

When Laura moved the couch, Rob tripped. It happened at the beginning of each show and it was an easy lesson to learn and one I applied first to my patrons in the public branch libraries I managed. I may change the upholstery of my virtual furniture, but my learners have told me clearly, they like the living room as it is.

This may seem counter to the trends in knowledge organization that David Weinberger describes–movement from taxonomies (hierarchical trees) to tags (piles of leaves). Granted, my image map is but one representation–it does not anticipate all the words and schema users bring to it.  But the images–my own slightly organized piles of leaves–make sense to our particular community of learners.  The pathfinders and other finding tools reorganize the knowledge for various projects and various users.  My voice, their teachers’ voices–are embedded in the site.  The voices represent comfort and guidance and trust.

The couch stays put. Thanks Ben and Bob for affirming my choice and chasing the demons away.