Knowledge Broker?

FROM SCHOOL LIBRARIAN TO KNOWLEDGE BROKER; new times, new title?

For decades, librarians were primarily perceived as ‘printed material’ providers:  we selected and purchased books and magazines for our school community, organized and housed them, and put them into the hands of students and staff as needed or wanted.   If we didn’t own a particular resource, we might be able to borrow it from another library, but the learning activity inevitably required hands-on use of a concrete object.

Information came packaged in generic formats: if students learned how to use one encyclopedia or atlas or dictionary or handbook, they would then – hopefully — know how to use any other publication utilizing that same kind of information-organization format.  Libraries were considered the (physical) place to go for the facts you needed to know. 

And everything we provided had been thoughtfully selected based on quality, age-appropriateness, and usefulness.

Even searching for information was – in some ways – easier. I once asked a class to explain the difference between an index and a search engine, and one clever lad replied that “indexes sort it out in advance for you, and tell you what they have and where it is, but search engines have to be told what to look for, and then you have to hope they find what you want!”

Now, thanks to all the new information/communication technologies, our students can access a vast array of information that’s available any time, anywhere, and in all kinds of (often dis-ordered) formats. As Richard Saul Wurman said in Information Anxiety 2:

The great Information Age is really an explosion of non-information: it is an explosion of data… The opportunity is that there is so much information… The catastrophe is that 99% of it isn’t meaningful or understandable.

As librarians, we counter the “everything I need is on the ‘Net” comments by demonstrating how information professionals can provide access to a wide variety of useful/appropriate resources, many of which are unavailable on the “free” Web.  Yet even as forecasters indicate that most new economic growth will come from the “knowledge industry,” school librarians still need to scrounge for support and funding for the programs and services that will educate those future knowledge workers!

According to Andrew Hargadon and Robert Sutton, the authors of “Building an Innovation Factory,” the most innovative companies use a “knowledge-brokering cycle” to spark creativity and develop new products and services.  This knowledge-brokering cycle involves “four intertwined work practices: capturing good ideas, keeping ideas alive, imagining new uses of old ideas, and putting promising concepts to the test.” In-house innovators often serve as knowledge brokers, functioning as  “intermediaries … between otherwise disconnected pools of ideas.”

When I thought about how those concepts reflect what we do in our roles and responsibilities and school librarians, I realized that school librarians are constantly functioning as information intermediaries — creating virtual flow-charts for our students to use in their quests for knowledge. So much of what we do every day reflects this concept of knowledge-brokering as we:

• CAPTURE GOOD IDEAS:  As collection development and management specialists, we locate and evaluate ideas and information in every kind of format.  We select, organize and provide access to resources useful for our constituent’s needs.  We even acquire materials in anticipation of need, based on our informed awareness of curriculum and school/community culture.

• KEEP IDEAS ALIVE: As information providers, we understand the need to promote our resources to make them useful and available to our students and staff. We publicize our holdings through displays, newsletters, activities, websites, etc.  We seek out ways to develop learning activities that will utilize our collections, both print and virtual. An unused collection is a wasted investment, and we need to be able to justify our requests for more funds by demonstrating how heavily our current resources are being used.

• IMAGINE NEW USES OF OLD IDEAS: As information intermediaries for the entire school community, we often see tie-ins across the curriculum that are not immediately apparent to the subject specialist or classroom teacher.  We are ‘resourcerers’ who tend to have extensive mental junkyards, and we often see ways to recycle an old project or activity in order to take advantage of newly-available techniques, formats, or even contexts.

• PUT PROMISING CONCEPTS TO THE TEST: As early users of all kinds of multimedia hardware and online applications, we’re often perceived as the techno-wizards (even if it’s just that we’re the only ones to keep/read the instruction manuals!) who will be willing/able to pilot new products, skills, and strategies.  Look around: how many of you still have laser-discs on your shelves? 

Even our faithful old Dewey Decimal System and Sears or LC subject headings reflect and utilize those innovation strategies:  as we add new materials to our (real and/or virtual) collections, we are gathering, evaluating, extending, and applying new concepts and ideas within the context of what we already have and use.   Our OPACs provide connections to those otherwise disparate and disconnected containers of ideas.

“I may not know the answer, but I know how/where to find it.” AASL’s Standards for the 21^st Century Learner serve to develop effective seekers and users of information, not just as students but also as citizens in a global economy.  When we teach search strategies, we are preparing our students to be effective problem-solvers.  We can’t possibly predict what new formats will become available in the coming decades, but we can certainly develop the skills and strategies that will be needed to utilize those formats.  Whether in fixed or flexible schedules, we strive to develop learning activities that require our students to use and restructure the information they’ve gathered to create and demonstrate new understanding and knowledge of a subject.

A book in hand is no longer the defining factor for information-gathering. New technologies offer us the opportunity to provide our students with 24/7 access to quality resources through subscription databases, while too many of us are still being told that “you don’t need more money; you’ve got plenty of books on those shelves.”  So we’ve learned to find all kinds of creative ways to make the most of our limited funds, evaluating which resources and formats will provide the most benefit for the most users for the greatest amount of time.

More and more I recognize yet another example of how we intuitively use that knowledge-brokering cycle as an integral part of our ongoing job functions.  And often the lyrics to a song from Sunday in the Park with George (Sondheim, 1986) keep bouncing through my brain:

Bit by bit,

Putting it together.

Piece by piece.

Working out the vision night and day.

All it takes is time and perseverance,

With a little luck along the way,

Putting in a personal appearance,

Gathering supporters and adherents…

Mapping out the right configuration,

Starting with a suitable foundation…

There a little touch of publication-

Till you have a balanced composition-

Everything depends on preparation-

Even if you do have the suspicion

That it’s taking all your concentration-

Bit by bit,

Putting it together…

Today’s school librarian needs to be a data detective, a product evaluator, an information advisor, a research counselor, a project developer, an info-skills instructor, a multi-media manager, a computer coach, a financial analyst, a creative connector, a collaborative colleague, an experiential educator, a student-achievement supporter, a practical politician, an organizational operator, a show-me-how sharer, even an autodidact and polyhistor to function in the current educational marketplace.  Oh yeah, we’re definitely knowledge brokers.  I think it’s time to order some new business cards, don’t you?

Works Cited:

American Association of School Librarians.  Standards for the 21^st Century Learner.  Chicago: American Library Association, 200

Hargadon, Andrew and Robert I. Sutton. “Building an Innovation Factory.” Harvard Business Review. May-June 2000: 157-166.

Sondheim, Stephen and James Lapine.  Sunday in the park with George; a musical. 1984 Original Broadway Cast RECORDING. Audio CD Liner notes. New York, RCA, 1990.

Wurman, Richard Saul, David Sume and Loring Leifer.  Information Anxiety 2.  Indianapolis: Queue, 2000.

————————

originally published as From School Librarian to Knowledge Broker  in Library Media Connection, April/May 2003. 

Cheer for School Libraries

L-I-B-R-A-R-Y!     L-I-B-R-A-R-Y!  

Check us out!

Info Skills — that’s our game

Lifetime Learners, that’s our aim!

We show readers how to use

Resources beyond the textbook blues.

Facts to go and Fiction to share

We stock ideas from everywhere!

Information — we’ve got it!

Imagination — can’t live without it!

Call it the Learning Commons or the IMC —

Whatever the name, it’s the place to be …

at the

L-I-B-R-A-R-Y!     L-I-B-R-A-R-Y!

We’re up to date on the latest fare:

Tech-no-logic-ly aware:

Cyber-connected, reaching out,

InterWebbing all about.

Subject specific or recreational,

Our resources are sensational.

We teach future decision-makers

to be critical thinkers and knowledge creators

in the

L-I-B-R-A-R-Y!     L-I-B-R-A-R-Y!

Check us out!

L*I*B*R*A*R*I*E*S*

Here is the banner I had hanging outside my ‘room’ wherever I worked:

L inking

I deas

B etween

R eaders

A nd

R esources -

I nforming,

E nriching,

S haring!

Note that it says Ideas, not just Information, because Imagination is just as important as factual content.  
Also note that there is no mention of format, since it’s the content of those ideas that is more important than the container that encapsulates them.
Isn’t that what libraries — and librarians — are all about?

Activate, part 2

My real concern is that too many school librarians use the ‘but that’s the Association’s job’ as an excuse for inaction on their own part.  Complaining that your professional Associations (state or national) haven’t done anything/enough/now to speak up for school libraries is a Waste. of. Time. and. Energy.  

Kvetching about what shoulda/coulda does not get anything accomplished.

We cannot advocate for ourselves. We can, however, make sure that we make our voices heard as activists - spreading the word to those who WILL speak up for us. 

What can YOU — an INDIVIDUAL — do?  WRITE LETTERS TO LEGISLATORS NOW!

Consider these impassioned suggestions:

• Buffy Hamilton’s An Indecent Proposal  http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/an-indecent-proposal/
• Carolyn Foote’s Letters for Libraries wiki http://lettersforlibraries.wikispaces.com/  and blogpost  http://futura.edublogs.org/2010/02/22/letters-for-libraries/
• Gwyneth Jones’ Letters for Libraries: Advocacy & Action http://librarytechmusings.blogspot.com/2010/02/letters-for-libraries-advocacy-action.html
• YA Librarian’s Letter in Support of Student Achievement  http://theyalibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/02/letter-in-support-of-student.html
• Tom Kaun’s School Library Advocacy in Action  http://libraryleaves.blogspot.com/2010/02/school-library-advocacy-in-action.html
• and Kelly Brannock’s Media Center Survivor  http://ncslma.blogspot.com/2010/02/oh-what-trying-times-these-are-bad.html

Two important caveats as you prepare your messages:

1.  When you write and/or call your legislators, do NOT start by identifying yourself as a school librarian. Introduce yourself as a supporter of school libraries, or a constituent concerned about education. You want your first impact to be that you are advocating for students, not that you are pleading on your own behalf.

2.  Fax or email your letters, but do not send them via Ye Olde Post Office; nowadays all paper-mail sent to legislators has to be checked for suspicious ‘enclosures,’ and may not be delivered for weeks or even months.

Activate comes before Advocate

 —not just alphabetically, but procedurally:

Activate (v): initiate something; start a function.
Synonyms: arouse, energize, impel, mobilize, motivate, prompt, propel, set in motion, start, stimulate, switch on, trigger.

Advocate (v): support idea or cause publicly.
Synonyms: advise, argue for, bolster, boost, campaign for, champion, defend, go to bat for, justify, promote, recommend, support.
—http://thesaurus.reference.com/

Activists start the process to make something happen.
Advocates support the process and product of that initial action.
BIIIG difference.

Every semester, it’s the unit on Public Relations that is a revelation to most of the students in my School Library Management course. Posters and displays and reading contests: no problem. But administrative reports and collaborative connections and community outreach efforts … you mean we have to do that, too? Yes.
Here are some unfortunate realities:

• Too many adults (both in and out of schools) still think of the library as a quiet place where the nice lady just reads stories and checks out books to kids.
• Too many politicians think that ‘you can find everything you need on the InterWebs,’ even though those same politicians prefer shelves of books as the background for their photo-ops when making education-related pronouncements.
• Too many school librarians seem to subscribe to a “field of dreams” mythology: if you build a library, “they” will somehow know about it, and come and use it and value it.
• Too many school districts are cutting school library programs because too many school administrators and taxpayers don’t recognize the educational value TO STUDENTS of those library programs.

and

• Too many school librarians talk about the urgent need for advocacy efforts to support the idea of school libraries, but somehow expect those efforts to come from somewhere/someone else on their behalf.

School librarians can NOT assume that the rest of the world understands how and why library programs are necessary, especially in our changing information landscape.

We need to be ACTive about REACHING OUT to all members of our communities: teachers, administrators, parents, legislators, media, etc., to get our stories out. We can’t expect – or wait for – our professional associations to do it for us. And our stories have to be positive: no whining or begging.

Ask yourself: what can YOU do to SHOW and TELL what’s happening in your local program? What evidence can you use to demonstrate the impact of effective library programs and services on student learning?

And ask yourself this, too: are YOU paying attention to the changes happening around you? Because the world has changed, and our students’ needs have changed, and if you don’t learn how to steer effectively through the hills and valleys of program justification, you may just end up as road-kill.

Seven Things You Don’t (Need to) Know about Me - A Meme

I’ve been tagged by Cathy Nelson for this perennial meme. Since I listed five things when Doug Johnson tagged me two years ago, I’ll just add these items to the list:

1. I am incorrigibly curious. My parents were educators, and the daily dinner question was “so what did you DISCOVER today?” (note: not learned; discovered. BIG difference.) That curiosity has occasionally gotten me in trouble … On the way to the hospital to have my first child, I stopped to read an historical marker near the hospital entrance. My husband got to the admitting desk only to discover that I was still a half-block behind him. The next time I was pregnant, he insisted that I read every signpost along all the possible routes to the hospital each time we went for a check-up, just to make sure that there would be no “delays” this time.

2. Although I am probably the most tech-savvy of my immediate friends and family, the truth is that I have NO idea how computers actually work. There could be little green men in pointy hats frantically shuffling index cards inside each of those machines to make the magic happen. I know how to USE the magic as needed, but don’t understand (or even need to know) how those technologies work. I’m just grateful for the opportunities and adventures that cyber-connections provide!

and a bonus:
3. I am a certified klutz.  But most of you knew that about me already.

Now I tag Sara, Carl, Lazygal, Chris, Diane, Sophie, and Brian.

100 things meme

Been there, done that? I wonder who came up with this list, and how culturally biased it is.

In any case, I’ve bolded those items I have already done, and italicized those I’m still hoping to get to, someday, somehow:

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/Disneyworld
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Misgiving Day

Did you know about this annual observance? Observed (obviously not an occasion for celebration) on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, *Misgiving Day* “is designed to break the arc of forced bonhomie that extends from Thanksgiving, hits its apogee at Christmas, and climaxes on New Year’s Eve.” Here is our opportunity to “rue our excesses, our sins of commission and omission, and the overall shallowness of our existence not to mention the gluttony of the recent holiday.”
Anyone care to join me in some sour mash?

Banned Books Week

September 27 - October 4, 2008: celebrate the freedom to read whatever you want, wherever/whenever/however you want.
And if you don’t think you’ve got anything lying around that befits the occasion, try this list of *25 Banned Books That You Should Read Today*, from DegreeDirectory.
Hmmmm… the only title on that list that I haven’t read is American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis. I wonder what that says about me?

Let a smile be your umbrella

In these unsettling times, I depend on daily doses of the following comic-strips:

Brevity: http://www.comics.com/comics/brevity/index.html
Day by Day: http://www.daybydaycartoon.com
Frazz: http://www.comics.com/comics/frazz/
Get Fuzzy: http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/index.html
Indexed: http://indexed.blogspot.com/
9 Chickweed Lane: http://www.comics.com/comics/chickweed/index.html
Non Sequitur: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/
Savage Chickens: http://www.savagechickens.com/
Shelf Check: http://shelfcheck.blogspot.com/
Unshelved: http://www.unshelved.com/

and thanks to the magic of RSS feeds, I get to read these online, wherever I am!

Been there, done that

Abject apologies! I just returned from my daily swim on the beautiful Fijian beach and realised I have not updated this since the long board was invented… You would not believe how much more of a drama I could make that. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness..

I am hopped up on caffeine with discovering time doesn’t stand still, choosing my retirement village, just generally being a terrible burden to anyone unfortunate to cross my path. My day drifts aimlessly from when the light through yonder window breaks until I see the last of my darling’s 10000 text messages. Remember that life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get — and I’ve been visiting the chocolate factory right here in town too often.

I won’t promise anything to you but I will make more of an effort to blog more often. No, really! I will write more to certain yous; but it might not be you in particular who I write to.

Created by the *Lazy Bloggers Post Generator* — after noting examples from Doug et al.
Now it’s YOUR turn!

Web 2.0 explained

The best ever — and simplest — explanation of what web 2.0 and social networking is all about:
http://indexed.blogspot.com/2008/08/this-is-what-20-means.html
And if you have never explored the brilliance of Indexed, go there now!!

Meme: 5 things policy-makers ought to know

Cathy Nelson tagged me with this meme, originally started by Nancy Flanagan, so here goes:
Five Things Policy-Makers Ought to Know:

1. If you're going to mandate a new initiative, then you need to FUND that initiative. Do not expect schools/districts to find money for your newly legislated requirements, just because you 'said so.' NCLB's ridiculous requirements have meant the elimination of too many programs that made kids think creatively and critically beyond the narrow parameters of the TEST.

2. Assessment and accountability can be measured in many ways beyond standardized testing. Robots can pass tests. That doesn't mean they can think on their own. AYP doesn't consider the intangibles that make kids want to learn. Effective teachers have myriad (not necessarily "score-able") ways to encourage and evaluate student learning.

3. Walk the walk before you shoot your mouth off: every wannabe BoE member and/or central office administrator should be required to substitute teach for at least a month -- at the elementary, middle, and high school levels -- so they know what it's really like in the trenches.

4. There should be term limits for ALL elected/appointed policy-makers. Entrenched doesn't always mean enlightened. 'We've always done it that way' is not a viable rationale for any decision. Times change, cultures change, and new viewpoints often bring new solutions.

5. Effective -- and fully-funded -- library programs need to be an integral part of every school. No, you can't get all the info you need on the InterWeb. You need school librarians to guide your students and teachers to the best resources, and to the skills/strategies that will help them become informed citizens.

I tag Sara Kelly Johns, Kristin Fontichiaro, and Francey Harris.

Technorati Tags: education, meme, 5things

Harry Potter rides again

HP and the Half-Blood Prince will arrive in movie theaters on Friday, Nov 21, 2008. From the just-released trailer, it looks like the darkest episode yet, with flashbacks to young Tom Riddle's early days. I'll be curious to see whether this movie pulls in the same crowds as the previous ones... has Harry's appeal diminished since the last book was published?

My favorite podcasts

I am addicted to *TEDtalks*. TED (for Technology, Entertainment, Design) began in 1984 as a way to bring people from those three industries together to exchange ideas. Since then the annual TED conference has expanded to include coverage of ‘science, business, the arts, and global issues facing our world,’ as 1000 attendees gather in Long Beach CA for four days to see/hear “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers…give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.” There’s no way I could ever afford to attend the actual conference (tickets sell out a year in advance), but now many of the presentations are available online in both audio and video formats. If you’re new to TEDtalks, start by downloading the *top 10 TED talks highlights video*, to get a sense of the variety of subjects available. You can search for talks by theme, topic, or speaker, or just subscribe to the audio or video podcasts via iTunes.
I listen to the audio versions while driving, and lately I’ve been downloading the videos to show/share with the residents of my mother’s nursing home. 20 minutes is just enough for these 90-year-olds’ attention spans, and it’s certainly a change from daytime television!

SLJ20