The semester is drawing to a close and so too my blogging for SI643 Professional Practices. We closed out our readings for the semester with three readings about fostering a professional development community within one's organization. I thought this was a really nice way to end the semester because we had discussed education and professional development all semester long, that is after all what the class is about. But these final readings capped off the semester nicely, but turning the lens inward to what individual organizations can do to build positive incentivised learning environments for their staff.
The first article we read was about how one school district in Wyoming implemented an incentivised, voluntary, peer led professional development program. Although this particular program was built for K-12 educators I can easily see how their approach could be applied to libraries of all kinds. The main keys to their program's success seem to be first allowing teachers to choose whether or not they want to participate, and providing support for teachers who choose to get their professional development in other ways. This is really important because it eliminates any resistance you might get from people who feel resentful of being forced to participate in a program. It also ensures that those who choose not to participate have the support that they need to continue their professional development and aren't singled out or made to feel bad for choosing to go another way.
Another important element that the school district implemented was that this program would take place during school hours and on the clock. This meant that teachers didn't have to sacrifice more of their scarce free time to participate in professional development. The program is also peer led and there are incentives for leading learning sessions and participating.
Overall I think is a really great approach to ensuring that one's staff can stay up to day on their professional development without asking them to output tons of time and money that they don't have to continue learning elsewhere. I also liked the way in which it clearly fostered a strong learning community among the teachers at the school.
Our other two readings looked at a similar kind of program being implemented in public libraries. These programs involved more independent learning options, but still resulted in staff members teaming up to help each other out. Again a big component of this program I liked was the flexibility it gave participants, particularly for how and when to work on their assignments.
I think that finding ways to provide professional development in libraries, that provide flexibility, choice, and freedom to library staff members is so important. We all need to keep our current skills sharp and continue to add to our toolkit as we move forward professionally, but this can be difficult to do when working a full time job and trying to juggle a personal life at the same time. Providing time for professional development during the normal work day is a great solution to this, and it would likely make staff feel more appreciated and supported as the strive to develop new skills, which will ultimately benefit their institution.
I don't know a lot of the details about the program, but I know that MLibrary does have some professional development type programs in place for their staff. I know they have professional development days where staff attend talks and workshops during normal working hours, and they also have a shadowing program where staff members can spend a week shadowing other staff members to learn about the kind of work they do. After doing the readings for this week I think I need to find out more information about this program so I can be better educated about how professional development can work in academic library settings.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Webinar Reflections
I've participated as an audience member in a few webinars in the past, but being a moderator was a rather surreal and at times unsettling experience. I recognize the usefulness of webinars as a medium though which people who are far apart geographically can come together for a shared learning experience, but I have to say that I personally don't enjoy the experience very much as an audience member or a presenter.
Ultimately presenting the webinar with my group wasn't so bad, it went fairly smoothly and people seemed to be fairly engaged with our content, but I didn't like how disconnected I was from my audience. I have a background in theatre and I love teaching, sure I get nervous for presentations just like everyone else, but once I get going I love creating a connection with my audience or class. As a performer and an educator I see one of my greatest strengths as being able to read my audience or class and respond to the cues they are giving me. Being able to connect with my audience mean I can adjust my style and approach based on how my audience/class is reacting and in this way hopefully keep them engaged and alert.
With a webinar where not only can you not see your audience, but they could be anywhere being distracted by anything, this same kind of connection isn't possible. I can however see how this could be a huge advantage for individuals who get anxious and nervous about presenting in front of groups.
As an audience member I find it hard to participate effectively in webinars. If I am paying attention to the presenter and the slides, I can't pay attention to the discussion going on in chat, and if I participate in chat I miss much of what the presenter is saying. I actually prefer to watch pre-recorded webinars for this very reason, which lets face it isn't the point of webinars.
As far as the technology goes, it isn't exactly the most user friendly experience, but it isn't prohibitive either. Once my group worked with it a little bit, it really wasn't that bad and we got through our webinar without any issues.
My overall verdict? I don't really care for webinars, but I'm glad that I now have the skills to create and moderate one should I ever be called upon to do so.
Ultimately presenting the webinar with my group wasn't so bad, it went fairly smoothly and people seemed to be fairly engaged with our content, but I didn't like how disconnected I was from my audience. I have a background in theatre and I love teaching, sure I get nervous for presentations just like everyone else, but once I get going I love creating a connection with my audience or class. As a performer and an educator I see one of my greatest strengths as being able to read my audience or class and respond to the cues they are giving me. Being able to connect with my audience mean I can adjust my style and approach based on how my audience/class is reacting and in this way hopefully keep them engaged and alert.
With a webinar where not only can you not see your audience, but they could be anywhere being distracted by anything, this same kind of connection isn't possible. I can however see how this could be a huge advantage for individuals who get anxious and nervous about presenting in front of groups.
As an audience member I find it hard to participate effectively in webinars. If I am paying attention to the presenter and the slides, I can't pay attention to the discussion going on in chat, and if I participate in chat I miss much of what the presenter is saying. I actually prefer to watch pre-recorded webinars for this very reason, which lets face it isn't the point of webinars.
As far as the technology goes, it isn't exactly the most user friendly experience, but it isn't prohibitive either. Once my group worked with it a little bit, it really wasn't that bad and we got through our webinar without any issues.
My overall verdict? I don't really care for webinars, but I'm glad that I now have the skills to create and moderate one should I ever be called upon to do so.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Tweeting in Library-Land
So in case people hadn't already noticed I'm sure this weeks twitter related assignment made it very clear that librarians love them some twitter. I've been on twitter for some years now and have always had mixed feelings about it. This is partly due to the fact that I do not have a smart phone, and don't really see myself getting one anytime soon due to very prohibitive pricing on data plans.
What I don't like about twitter:
If you don't have a smart phone you have to access twitter on your computer and that's not really how twitter was made to be used. I've noticed that a lot of library and archives related conferences are big on using hash tags for communication throughout conference events, and this is totally a great idea, if you have a smart phone. If you don't have a smart phone and you're at a conference where you know there is going to be a lot of tweeting going on you're basically doomed to lug your laptop around the whole time, which is a total bummer. So in a why twitter pretty effectively excludes anyone who has chosen not to get a smart phone, or (as is the case for me) can't afford one. I find this very frustrating, but I realize that there isn't anything I can do about it.
What I do like about twitter:
As I said before I've been on twitter for a few years now, I started it quite a while ago simply out of curiosity, and then pretty much ignored my account until coming to SI. When I arrived at SI I started thinking about how I might effectively use twitter even without a smartphone, or tablet device. I decided to use it as a kind of news aggregator for my two areas of professional interest, libraries (specifically academic special collection libraries), and early modern scholarship (specifically Shakespeare).
Using twitter in this way has been useful to me. I can't check up to the minute news, but I can scan through my feed in the morning over coffee or in the evening when I'm sitting at home watching TV. I have found it to be a useful way to stay up to date on what is going on in the professional areas that I am interested in, find new articles, and even to interact with / ask questions of professionals who's work I'm interested in. I even contacted one of the professional librarians I follow on twitter to ask her for suggestions for blogs to follow for this class.
Finally I have also been using twitter a lot lately to follow a few library job posting sites, to get up to dates info on the latest jobs being posted in the field.
Conclusions:
Overall I guess I would have to conclude that I have found a useful way to use twitter, and it is the best way to get professional news on a variety of topics all in one place. However, I still think that when libraries and other professional organizations place a big focus on it for conferences or other events they should think long and hard about who they are excluding and what this means.
What I don't like about twitter:
If you don't have a smart phone you have to access twitter on your computer and that's not really how twitter was made to be used. I've noticed that a lot of library and archives related conferences are big on using hash tags for communication throughout conference events, and this is totally a great idea, if you have a smart phone. If you don't have a smart phone and you're at a conference where you know there is going to be a lot of tweeting going on you're basically doomed to lug your laptop around the whole time, which is a total bummer. So in a why twitter pretty effectively excludes anyone who has chosen not to get a smart phone, or (as is the case for me) can't afford one. I find this very frustrating, but I realize that there isn't anything I can do about it.
What I do like about twitter:
As I said before I've been on twitter for a few years now, I started it quite a while ago simply out of curiosity, and then pretty much ignored my account until coming to SI. When I arrived at SI I started thinking about how I might effectively use twitter even without a smartphone, or tablet device. I decided to use it as a kind of news aggregator for my two areas of professional interest, libraries (specifically academic special collection libraries), and early modern scholarship (specifically Shakespeare).
Using twitter in this way has been useful to me. I can't check up to the minute news, but I can scan through my feed in the morning over coffee or in the evening when I'm sitting at home watching TV. I have found it to be a useful way to stay up to date on what is going on in the professional areas that I am interested in, find new articles, and even to interact with / ask questions of professionals who's work I'm interested in. I even contacted one of the professional librarians I follow on twitter to ask her for suggestions for blogs to follow for this class.
Finally I have also been using twitter a lot lately to follow a few library job posting sites, to get up to dates info on the latest jobs being posted in the field.
Conclusions:
Overall I guess I would have to conclude that I have found a useful way to use twitter, and it is the best way to get professional news on a variety of topics all in one place. However, I still think that when libraries and other professional organizations place a big focus on it for conferences or other events they should think long and hard about who they are excluding and what this means.
Monday, April 1, 2013
To embed or not to embed?
Today in class we talked about the concept of embedded librarians in relation to our readings for this week. I was glad for the opportunity to go over this concept more in class because I felt that the readings had some clarity issues, which I don't think are necessarily their fault, but rather that the subject has some foggy areas.
One of my classmates shared that she had found it difficult to distinguish between what exactly defined someone as an embedded librarian versus just having a well organized and integrated library system. I have to say that I identified a lot with this feeling because it seems that in many instances the differences are not clear. I think that overall I am okay with a certain amount of uncertainty around this subject because I suspect that part of it is that whether embedded or not a librarian's job description is going to vary by institution and therefore what may be defined as an embedded librarian at one institution may be defined differently as another. While this may make it somewhat hard to talk about, I think that so long as each given library is clear as to what is expected of their librarians, it is okay.
Another thing we talked about was the fact that most of us have never utilized our own librarian at SI. I can't speak for the rest of my class, but for me it is part a matter of accessibility and part a matter necessity. My days are very full (as I'm sure are those of my peers), and I don't really have time to specifically go by someone's office hours, not to mention the fact that I work during hers. The other is that while I have written research papers, all be it fairly minor ones, while at SI I haven't felt that I needed help finding resources.
In my previous grad program in English I had a very different experience, and regularly sought out our librarians for assistance. There were however a few very big differences. For one we had a small subject specific reference library where we as grad students were each given a shelf for our books, but we were not allowed to remove the books from the library. The library was literally connected to the building we had classes in. Finally there were two main librarians whom we got to know very well through simply being in the library and through the research skills class, which they taught, and which we were all required to take in our first term. All of these elements combined to give us as students a very strong connection to our library, its staff, and the resources it contained. Out side of the physical properties of the library and our familiarity with the staff we were also writing much more in depth and lengthy research papers.
Although I have worked in and around Hatcher since I arrived as SI, my relationship with the building is no where near as intimate as it was at my former graduate program. This is partly just due to the size of the library and its staff. I do however wonder if having SI's librarian somehow participate in our 501 or 500 class, preferably 501 since it is our first big class at SI that everyone is required to take, might have fostered a stronger relationship between her and the students simply by raising our awareness of her.
One of my classmates shared that she had found it difficult to distinguish between what exactly defined someone as an embedded librarian versus just having a well organized and integrated library system. I have to say that I identified a lot with this feeling because it seems that in many instances the differences are not clear. I think that overall I am okay with a certain amount of uncertainty around this subject because I suspect that part of it is that whether embedded or not a librarian's job description is going to vary by institution and therefore what may be defined as an embedded librarian at one institution may be defined differently as another. While this may make it somewhat hard to talk about, I think that so long as each given library is clear as to what is expected of their librarians, it is okay.
Another thing we talked about was the fact that most of us have never utilized our own librarian at SI. I can't speak for the rest of my class, but for me it is part a matter of accessibility and part a matter necessity. My days are very full (as I'm sure are those of my peers), and I don't really have time to specifically go by someone's office hours, not to mention the fact that I work during hers. The other is that while I have written research papers, all be it fairly minor ones, while at SI I haven't felt that I needed help finding resources.
In my previous grad program in English I had a very different experience, and regularly sought out our librarians for assistance. There were however a few very big differences. For one we had a small subject specific reference library where we as grad students were each given a shelf for our books, but we were not allowed to remove the books from the library. The library was literally connected to the building we had classes in. Finally there were two main librarians whom we got to know very well through simply being in the library and through the research skills class, which they taught, and which we were all required to take in our first term. All of these elements combined to give us as students a very strong connection to our library, its staff, and the resources it contained. Out side of the physical properties of the library and our familiarity with the staff we were also writing much more in depth and lengthy research papers.
Although I have worked in and around Hatcher since I arrived as SI, my relationship with the building is no where near as intimate as it was at my former graduate program. This is partly just due to the size of the library and its staff. I do however wonder if having SI's librarian somehow participate in our 501 or 500 class, preferably 501 since it is our first big class at SI that everyone is required to take, might have fostered a stronger relationship between her and the students simply by raising our awareness of her.
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