Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

This past week, I’ve been in Seattle attending back-to-back library conferences—ALISE and ALA. I presented a workshop on K-12 information-seeking behavior with a wonderful panel—Marcia Mardis, Anne Perrault, and Dave Lankes, and I learned from all of them. At ALA I attended the first of our committee meetings to rewrite the national guidelines for school library programs.

The differences between these two conferences were stark to me. I am still green in the world of “the academy.” I am not used to the idea of attending workshops and keynotes where presenters read their research papers rather than express thoughts and reactions. Those who ask questions following those session often begin their questions with “according to my research . . .” rather than, “could you help me understand?” (Note: this was not the case for all the sessions, but it was for many. Interestingly, presenters who had some K12 experience seemed to present in more energetic ways.)

But I longed for informal dialog, passion and energy regarding research I truly did find fascinating. Though I often violate all the rules of making a presentation, I cannot separate passion and energy from my own talks. I connect by telling stories.

A particular highlight between the conferences was Why Teens Heart MySpace. Danah Boyd’s research involves the power of social networking for young people. “If you’re not on MySpace you don’t exist,” notes one of the teens Boyd quoted. Teens want to hang out with friends, to goof around, to do nothing, to learn about what is going on around them “from the unexpected reactions of strangers.” Boyd shared the types of communities teens are building on MySpace and young people’s motivations for building those communities.

She asks, “Where did we learn the road rules?” As a teen, I suspect that I learned the rules hanging around the Seaview movie theater, or around the SUBO at Brooklyn College on Friday nights. Like in online landscapes, that’s where my friends discovered where we fit, how to fit in, what to adjust if we wanted to connect or disconnect in social space. Teens (and the rest of us) long to be in unregulated environments, away from those who impose pressures on them. Several of chatted about this concept of a “third place,” perhaps like Cheers, where you can be yourself without serious consequence. MySpace creates small worlds based on relationships and the potential for relationships. Friendships, romances, break-ups are public. Your Top 8 is an important way to gauge “superficial” acceptance. Taking someone off your Top 8 is serious relationship business.

Marketers also live in MySpace. In my never-ending quest to be a small window on my learners’ desktops, I’ll revisit my own MySpace page and see how I might use it to market library services.

During our first meeting the committee to rewrite the national guidelines for school library programs, enjoyed a wonderful brainstorming session negotiating the practical and the visionary and discussing new potentials and tools. At an open meeting to discuss the second draft of the new learning standards, we reached a fairly easy consensus about creating a document with friendlier language and acknowledged the major work that committee invested in moving us ahead.

Scholastic’s launch of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was so entertaining!  I am looking forward to reading this format blasting–picture book, graphic novel, mystery, film. I had an interesting dinner conversation about history. Would the founding fathers be bloggers?

I woke up one morning with a new motto and I seriously considered changing the title of this blog. Likely, I won’t shift, but what do you think about the notion of “leading from the center”? For me this means striving to lead the learning for administrators, teachers, and students. It also means leading from the center of the school– the library media or information center.