Category: Thinking Out loud

T(hinking)O(ut)L(oud): Literacy and Reading and Books

(TOL=Thinking Out Loud)

Yet again resurrecting the old blog… Not much time to write these days.

I am not a literacy theory student or a certified teacher. I’m a librarian — a systems librarian these days, to tell the truth. I manage a consortial ILS these days (Koha — hooray!), but questions like what Buffy Hamilton raised on Twitter tonight get me going and make me temporarily stop digging through mySQL databases or tickets or testing or email. Buffy’s sponsors of literacy posts at the DMLCentral blog have been very thought-provoking.

She posted this series of tweets:

For the first time in a long time I was on Twitter while she was posted these thoughts, and I fired back:

—-

And that’s when I decided to write this post, the first in many, many months. Twitter’s character limits got in the way, and I have too many thoughts crashing into one another and they need to be shared. Bear with me just for a moment.

Again, I am not a literacy expert — the little I know solely comes from reading and listening to Buffy’s lines of thinking these days. I am not a certified teacher, either, so please don’t get all over me if I say something wrong or unkosher.

This conversation and numerous other mashed up discussions from the day (over stats, of all things!) has me questioning why people get so caught up in the container of what really matters — the STORY.

A newspaper has a multitude of stories.
A magazine.
A website is full of them.
Ads tell stories.
Movies — duh.
Graphic novels — ever read March??
Books — obviously (what about the different platforms of books?).
A sporting event.
A road sign.
And I’m getting side tracked.

I’ll returning to the last tweet I posted to Buffy:

Is it
to be entertained?
to learn?
to grow?
to think?
to escape?
to be challenged?
to carry out a task?
to gain understanding?
to build knowledge?

I’d argue the end goal of literacy, of reading, is all of those and much more than I can think of right now.

And how can those actions —
the
entertaining,
learning,
growing,
thinking,
escaping,
challenging,
tasking,
understanding,
building —

be delivered?

Through written text, yes, but what about
simple conversations?
Writing?
Poetry?
Articles?
Movies?
A piece of music — sung or played?
A sport?
Observing someone?
And again, so much more.

All of these? They are telling stories.

So why, do we simply recommend books as the normal medium to help people discover the joy of reading? Instead, what if we started asking people what story they want to find or learn or seek out and provide the possible mediums to that story?

What if, by coming to where people are at — helping them find the stories they want to discover, they can be introduced to all types of literacies – and learn and grow — and not simply shut down, because “the right book” — the right container — couldn’t be found?

This post originally stopped here, but completely independent of this post, I stumbled across a commercial — for whiskey of all things — that told a beautiful story. And I want to close with it. Watch it and THEN finish the post 🙂

Do people still need to learn to read? Yes! The basics still need to be taught. You grow through reading different variations of literature, and gain understanding of the world. But there was a reason this commerical’s story happened. And it wasn’t to fall in love with reading… The main character had a story he wanted to read, and to get there took a lot of work and a lot of different containers to learn to read, before he came back to the first story (I’m being deliberately vague, in case you skipped the video).

I may unpack this further. Or it may stand alone, as a simple thinking out loud exercise. What do you think?

Libraries, IT, Reference, the Future…and Learning?

A CNET senior editor questions the need for a library in today’s world and librarians are outraged. (I was outraged too, and then read his response on LISNews in the comments. He makes some very valid points on library problems that aren’t new problems.)

Then, Library Journal has a provocative story out today, Geeks Are the Future: A Program in Ann Arbor, MI, Argues for a Resource Shift Toward IT and librarians are outraged in response, if the comments mean anything.

A quick snapshot of one of the many Twitter conversations around this article:


and my response

Meanwhile, a new book is out, beginning a conversation to continue to pave a new path for the Library. The overarching theme of the book is that “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities” author R. David Lankes writes in The Atlas of New Librarianship.

Another way this can be said is through this quote:

“The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literacy incense must be burned or where one’s devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas.” –Norman Cousins, quoted in The Atlas of New Librarianship.

I’m still slowly working my way through the book and it’s going to take some time to take it all in and “process it” (a phrase I’ve been repeating too frequently lately). One of the many questions I’m asking going through the book comes back to how can the library be the delivery room for ideas? If people still have questions that need answers and the traditional reference desk/virtual reference desk concept is working in most places, how can we meet their needs? How can the library, or the librarians, uniquely serve the needs of each individual community? Time will tell if the Atlas answers my questions.

(I think it already has started to; but I’m saving my final verdict and thoughts for when I’m done with it. Why is it taking so long? It’s 400 pages 🙂 Enough said. It’s intensive reading, but it’s easy compared to the political philosophy readings I worked through in college! I’ll take Lankes over Rousseau, Locke, or Hobbes any day!)

All three of these examples, and my comment on Twitter about the word reference, lead me back to the book “In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas have something missing” (notes are available from Erica Reynolds’ book talks at Computers in Libraries and at KLA), which I’m still working through. Two quote that Erica mentioned right at the beginning that capture the book,

“Because without a new way of viewing the world we will most assuredly succumb to employing the same kinds of thinking that created so many of our problems in the first place….” — Matthew May (emphasis mine)

“Because by nature we tend to add when we should subtract, and act when we should stop and think.” –Matthew May (emphasis mine)

Throwing out provocative ideas, pointing out problems, reframing the questions and problems, stepping back and thinking before reacting. I think all of these are valid approaches to the situations facing the library profession. And it’s an approach I’m going to continue to take.

What will the library look like? I can’t wait to find out.

If this post didn’t make much sense, I understand. There’s much in my head that isn’t out yet. I’m processing, always processing ideas and readings and presentations. Thanks for continuing this journey by reading, even when it doesn’t make very much sense yet.

Post-Note: After posting this tonight, I finally read Will Richardson’s “The “New” Normal“, which neatly fits in with some of the thoughts rattling around in my brain, including one soon-to-be-out notes from a TEDxOKC speaker on Education Reform.

He says a lot about education that’s worth your time, but it was his final paragraph that I wanted to add here:

In other words, this is going to take a while, and it’s not going to be without pain. What does eventually rise from the ashes will be dependent on each of us seeing the world differently for ourselves, our willingness to lead and participate in the change, and at the end, fighting hard for what we believe is best for our kids. —Will Richardson

I’ll append to his phrase, “What is best for our kids”, what is best for our communities, our nation and our world. And this quoted could be easily directed at libraries, journalism, business, higher ed, law, government (heaven forbid), the church, and communities.

A New Year and a New Outlook

Be prepared for a stream of consciousness. You’ve been warned.

I haven’t blogged since September. Yikes. I’ve had things to say, but have said them in person directly to people or in chat or online. But not here. I’ve kind of let this blog go. But no longer.

It’s a new year. And for a multitude of reasons, my brain is suddenly awake. And all these writing ideas are spewing out of it. Up until now, I’ve focused this blog on librarianship and technology. After all, it’s titled “Librarian in the Cloud.” But my interests have grown to include education, lifelong learning, library advocacy, education technology, teaching. I want to write on them, read about them, think about them, and let others know. It’s a scary thought. I used to blog and write many years ago in college. No you’re not going to find my writings linked anywhere — on purpose. They were purely partisanly political in nature, and I’ve changed and moderated a great deal since that time. The world was black and white and I had it all figured out in college. And then I left college. The real world collided. I started working. And meeting lots of different people, who challenged me with their lives and their beliefs and I was refined.

Continue reading “A New Year and a New Outlook”