book: The Atlas of New Librarianship

The Atlas of New Librarianship
R. David Lankes

2011, The MIT Press

count: TBD  finished 23 pages

(408 pages, but I won't get them all thoroughly read)

An essential guide to a librarianship based not on books and artifacts but on knowledge and learning. Post to follow -- I'll work on this until our semester and reporting period end.

Update 5/2/2012

My reading in this text is the single regret for my supplemental reading this semester. I really wanted to get into this complex and amazingly rich resource, and I can only say that I honestly consumed only 23 pages. I spent lots of time examining and unraveling the infographics.

I would like to request a full course, doctoral level, on this text alone. It would take a full semester, and all the discussion and collaboration seen in a course to absorb all this.

book: "Being Indispensable"

Being Indispensable: A school librarian's guide to becoming an invaluable leader 

Ruth Toor and Hilda K. Weisburg

published 2011 by Amer Library Assn Editions

count: 184 pages when completed (I'll confirm completion with full post)  as of May 2, only 88 pages completed)

I'm still in the process of reading this book, but the purpose of the work: "to raise awareness that twenty-first-century learning requires school librarians to be leaders." (Introduction, p. ix) So far this is a powerful read.

news article: Dying Technologies

"15 Current Technologies My Newborn Son Won’t Use"

Avram Piltch

April 9, 2012    Gizmodo 

count: 1 page

Some of these technologies are obviously dying (land-line phones, fax machines) while others make sense, once I read about them (wired home Internet, dedicated cameras and camcorders, slow-booting computers). 

A few surprised me:

• hard-drives
• movie theatres
• 3-D glasses
• the mouse
• remote controls
• desktop computers
• optical disks

And a few shocked me:

• windowed operating systems
• phone numbers
• prime time television

An intriguing read!

web editorial: "Friction" and eBooks

“Friction” and Progress: ALA Pushes the Big Six Ebook Holdouts

By Francine Fialkoff
March 6, 2012
Library Journal news online

count: 1 page

This is a somewhat retro perspective after my prior post today. But I cite this article because it explains the term friction in reference to eBooks, and it also posits that use in an historical context. Good reading.

Friction refers to libraries lending eBooks with patrons having "no trips to pick up or return books." Macmillan’s Alison Lazarus put it this way: “We want to insure that customers who have typically been book buyers do not migrate their purchasing into borrowing.”

Heavens. Just how did Andrew Carnegie get past this obvious elephant in the room?

web news article: judicial ruling on ebook prices

"Huge Win for Citizens of Kindle Nation, and Amazon:  U.S. Justice Department Sues Apple and Five Big Publishers Over eBook Price Fixing; Three of Five Rush to Settle; Millions to be Paid Out to Customers "

by Steve Windwalker

Kindle Nation, April 11, 2012

count:2 pages (tangential research to discover the identities of the Big 6)

The US Justice Department has stepped into the eBook pricing world with both feet -- and appears to have dramatically impacted the pricing we should see on Kindle books (and thus, other eBooks) in the future.

With evidence of Jobs and Apple working with publishers to "create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99," as opposed to the $9.99 average, the government will "vigorously pursue the suit against Apple and the two publishers that did not settle."

Of the Big 6 publishers (see list below), 5 were being sued, 3 settled, and 2 are holding out, along with Apple.

I've wondered for a long time why this obvious  monopoly was being allowed. I just needed to wait a bit longer for the slow wheels of justice. Let's just hope they are also inexorable.

Big 6 Publishers?
From what I can determine, these are

• Hachette (settled)
• HarperCollins (settled)
• Macmillan  (to fight the suit)
• Penguin Group (to fight the suit)
• Simon & Schuster (settled)
• Random House (not included in the JD suit)

5/2/2012
Post data: I learned through my e-books study that Random House is the only publisher cooperating with vendors to offer e-books for a lending model.

blog post: History of school library standards

"History of School Library Standards- A Timeline"

Cawood Cornelius, Library Media Specialist, NBCT

on Georgia Library Media Association, Feb. 6, 2008

count: 1 page (bibliography to be pearled later)

Sharing from his dissertation research, Cornelius shares the history of school library standards in this guest post on the GLMA blog site. It's interesting to note that the first formal report on school library standards was presented and adopted in 1917 at the Symposium of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and these standards were adopted the following year.

This guest blog post does an excellent job of providing context to school library work and the understanding, as Mary Garver wrote in Every child needs a school library (1962), that the library is "the heart of the educational program."

textbook reading, continued: Part III

I completed the third and final section of the course textbook, and as before, have reviewed and responded to these pages on the Jimdo website.

This portion dealt with policies and safety issues for technology and education, and again, I found much to reflect on and to implement. 

Count: 56 pages

editorial and information source: INFOdocket

Not a new source, but new to me, and now with links to Library Journal news as well!

 

INFOdocket will continue to be the place to find hand-picked news, reports, and links related to the hot library and publishing topics of the day. But now it will also serve as something of a first-pass site, providing context and coverage that will feed into the full reporting coming from the LJ News team.

So now I'm wondering, is this my new, all-purpose, essential news source? I like Gary Parker's goal:

The maximum amount of relevant content in the minimum amount of time.

count: 1 page

State of America's Libraries Report 2012

State of America's Libraries Report 2012

American Library Association

released April 9, 2012

and

"ALA Releases State of American Libraries 2012 Report"

Gary Price

April 9, 2012

Infodocket  / Library Journal

count: 5 pages (1 for news release and 4 for executive summary)

It's never a good thing when the words draconian and libraries appear in the same sentence. But the Executive Summary begins with "2011 was a year of grim headlines." 

The news release concludes this year's SOAL report is that of "stagnating budgets, unsustainable costs, increased student enrollments and reduced staff" (Price, para. 5).

But there is no institution able to view the silver lining outlook than a library, and there were positive points as well.

• Use of libraries and their resources is way up!
• The library profession continues to work for minorities and under-represented groups
• Librarians continue to fight censorship
• Libraries and other First Amendment groups managed to rally effectively to oppose the SOPA and PIPA legistion
• ALA and sister library associations continue to advocate against and highlight the problem of "overly aggressive filtering of educational and social websites used by students and educators" (Ex. Summ, para 19).

Of note also is ALA's "Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books in 2011." I nodded at some of the titles, but groaned at a few as well. And, really: 50 years later and we're still challenging To Kill a Mockingbird??

 I hope to make it back to read beyond the Executive Summary -- rich stuff here, and SO MUCH INFORMATION!

 

online news article: Amazon, free Kindle books, and eBook growth

"One in four people end up buying an ebook after borrowing one for free"
by Public Libraries on April 4, 2012

The website of Public Libraries.Com (PLC) posted news from a recent Amazon news release sharing data on ebook lending and purchasing.

Amazon's statistics supported their previous statement that  "authors that participated in the program made more money and sold more ebooks." 

In fact, almost one in four (23%) of Amazon patrons who borrowed an ebook through Amazon's one-book-a-month lending program later purchased other books from the author.

Even lesser-known authors demonstrated increased sales when they allowwed their books to be loaned without charge.

"In March, each time Kindle owners borrowed a KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select book from the lending library, the author received $2.18, leading to significant increases in income for independently-published authors."

The PLC post ends with the pointed wish that "book publishers ... wake up and start loaning out their ebooks at public libraries."

count: 1 page

wiki: Joyce Valenza and 21st Century librarians

From some time back, this exceptional post has me checking, verifying, confirming, and planning for activities in my library. This discussion is nexus of the threads of this course: library leadership and technology.

"You know you're a 21st century librarian if . . . :   Manifesto for 21st Century School Librarians"

Joyce Valenza, October 2010

Information Fluency wiki

count: 3 pages

This length and wide-ranging post came about in response to a new librarian's question to Valenza: "In the 21st century, what does a school librarian do?" 

Valenza's thoughts provide an excellent discussion about the incredible pace of change in our field of librarianship. In view of that dramatic change, she suggests aspects that she considers to be "nonnegotiable" emerging practices.

These aspects fall into distinct areas:

• Reading
• Information Landscape
• Communication and publishing and storytelling
• Collection development
• Facilities of the physical space
• Access, Equity, Advocacy
• Audience and collaboration
• Copyright, "Copyleft," and Information Ethics 
• New technology tools
• Professional development and professionalism
• Teaching and Learning and Reference
• Into the Future (acknowledging the best of the past)

Readers will also benefit from her closing 24-points about what a librarian should NOT be doing.

This would a great starting point for beginning librarians and library students. It's also a great self-check for the more experienced -- lest we begin to fade.

online news: Huffington Post on Pearson INC

"Cuomo, Common Core and Pearson-for-Profit"

Alan Singer, Social studies educator, Hofstra University


Huff Post Education
Posted: 02/28/2012 4:19 pm

count: 1 page

If it has its way, Pearson will soon be determining what gets taught in schools across the United States with little or no parental or educational oversight.

A scary and clearly biased statement. But the evidence to back up this statement is alarming.

Evidence such as:  

• Pearson reported revenues of approximately $9 billion in 2010 and generated approximately $3 billion on just digital revenues in 2011.
•  Pearson is already creating teacher certification exams for eighteen states including New York, organizing staff development workshops to promote Pearson products, and providing school district Pearson assessment tools.
• In New York, Pearson Education currently has a five-year, $32 million contract to administer state test and provides other "testing services" to the State Education Department.
• It also recently received a share of a federal Race to the Top grant to create what the company calls the "next-generation" of online assessments.
• Since 2008, state education officials have been treated to trips to London, Helsinki, Finland, Singapore, and Rio de Janeiro.

 I find these reports to be alarming, at best.

Pew research web page: eBooks and reading

Now that I have discovered the Pew Libraries source, I was immediately captured by a study released April 4, 2012:  "The Rise of EReading." I read the "Summary of findings," and hope to read more of the study in the coming days.

The Rise of EReading

by Lee Rainie, Kathryn Zickuhr, Kristen Purcell, Mary Madden and Joanna Brenner

count: 2 pages

In short, this study reports an amazing rise in both reading devices and those who now read from them. The article is abstracted in this blurb:

21% of Americans have read an e-book. The increasing availability of e-content is prompting some to read more than in the past and to prefer buying books to borrowing them.

The overwhelming impression from the summary is one of the amazing rate of growth in digital reading.

This news is somewhat dismaying: The business models providing access to those ebooks seems huge but chaotic as vendors strategize and move to position themselves for maximal profit and survival in the current market.

Amazon may be the only "safe" platform of choice, reasonable cost, purchase, and dependable delivery, of owned content, to a stable device.

web page: Pew Internet

It's serendipity, really.

I am growing amazed at the number of links to great information that I receive through my Twitter feed. I could never keep up with all the tweets, but when I do take some time to read through some, I am off on a safari for all kinds of intriguing information.

This afternoon I was reminded that my classmates and I had been encouraged to check out the Pew Research organization. So when I Michael Stephens' re-tweet about the Pew Internet's new libraries section of their site, I followed the trail.

"Libraries get a room of their own"
by Mary Madden

Released: March 30, 2012

count: 1 page

The post was merely a notice that the Libraries division (funded by the Bill and Melanie Gates Foundation) was getting its own website. This division is working on a multiyear study of the changing role of public libraries in the digital age. 

But the page itself was a portal to an amazing array of information, data, and presentations based on the Pew research and data sets.

My eyes have been opened!

online article and study: Boys and eReaders

Boys Value Reading More with Ereaders
The Digital Shift, April 6, 2012 By Lauren Barack 

and 

Middle school boys who are reluctant readers value reading more after using e-readers
Public release date: 27-Mar-2012
Margaret Allen (mallen@smu.edu)
Southern Methodist University
 

count: 2 pages

Using Kindles specifically, researchers from SMU in Dallas recently began a 3-part study examining e-readers with middle school students to determine if that use would affect state test scores in reading. There was no such effect, but the study did find that boys rated reading more valuable as an activity after two months of using an e-reader. 

Classroom time spent using e-readers produced a positive attitude in boys in reading improvement classes at an urban middle school. However, the researchers from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas found the opposite result in girls. 

The study was not intended to be gender-related, but "as the authors began to look through the results, they noted differences between how girls and boys responded to the Kindle experience." Researchers intend to follow up with the students to find out more about what might be influencing the shift in value.

In the study results, comments gathered from students indicated "they liked not having to carry a lot of books; they liked other students not knowing their reading level or choice of book; and they liked that the book they were reading was always available and hadn't been removed from the classroom."

wikipedia article: First-sale doctrine

"First-sale doctrine"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

count: 3 pages (reading through links given beyond original page)

This week I participated in an ALA webinar by Sue Polanka about eBooks and the environment in which libraries are considering and using this medium for resources.

In the discussion, the phrase right of first sale came up, and I explored a little further. 

I have asked for years why libraries are legally able to do what they do: purchase and then loan materials. In today's atmosphere of strict copyright enforcement attempts and a general rule of "it's my intellectual / creative property and I'll sue if you use it," the background to library circulation was obscured.

Fortunately, this concept cleared that up for  me.

In short, first-sale doctrine has been recognized by court of law and codified by US statute:

It allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell, lend or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been legally obtained. This means that the copyright holder's rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy ends once ownership of that copy has passed to someone else, as long as the copy itself is not an infringing copy. This doctrine is also referred to as the "right of first sale," "first sale rule," or "exhaustion rule."

Now that I understand the legal concept, it seems striking that our digital society has gone so far in the other direction! Profit and corporate restrictions now seem out of balance and questionable: Obviously I have a lot more reading to do.

online magazine article: Testing and Poverty

"Stephen Krashen Pulls the Rug Out From Under the Standards Movement"
By Anthony Cody on April 3, 2012 1:33 PM
Some Comments on Paul Farhi's "Flunking the Test"
        Guest post by Stephen Krashen.

count: 1 page

Krashen continues to hammer at poverty as the issue in "failing" academics in the United States. 

While American students' scores on international tests are not as bad 

as critics say they are, they are even better when 

we control for the effects of poverty: 

Middle-class students in well-funded schools, 

in fact, score at or near the top of world.

And he reminds us of the data: "Only four percent of children in high-scoring Finland, for example, live in poverty. Our rate of poverty is over 21%."

The older I get, the less patience I have with ouro monolithic educational systems --financed by the public's tax dollars-- continuing to be indifferent to recognizing, and fixing, the true "issue."

blog: Youth and Media from Harvard blog

Thanks again to classmates sharing / reminding me of a valuable source of information!

Youth and Media: "From Credibility to Information Quality"

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/youthandmediaalpha/infoquality/

count: 1 page (additional posts will come from the tangential links)

Marty Rossi from ESC20 in San Antonio wrote in early March about The Berkman Center at Harvard  releasing results of a new study. The posting shared a useful infographic as well as these key findings:

1. Search shapes the quality of information that youth experience online.
2. Youth use cues and heuristics to evaluate quality, especially visual and interactive elements.
3. Content creation and dissemination foster digital fluencies that can feed back into search and evaluation behaviors.
4. Information skills acquired through personal and social activities can benefit learning in the academic context.

I am aware how much of my learning is due to professional networking and friends. Thanks, Ty and Marty.