Sunday 20 September 2015

Are we there yet? No ... and this is why - an appeal to database owners and academic libraries

I'm about to write another assignment.  This must be about my 40th serious assignment of over 2000 words requiring academic research, looking for good peer-reviewed studies, reading through 1000's of pages to try and distill exactly what is being said, whether it is of relevance (directly or tangentially), and once I'm finished that to pause and think and think and think and try to come up with some new insights, some different ways of applying the theory, some critiques that go beyond the obvious.

As I've written before, (unfair advantage, how I used to write) the true work isn't in the procuring of the articles, it's in discerning their relevance, it's in rejection rather than reading.

So why am I, Anno Domino / Common Era 2015 STILL spending so much time on the library database doing silly work.  Honestly, those who lead academic libraries and who run academic databases please tell me why this isn't easier, faster, more streamlined?  Is it me? Am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

Right now I'm looking for good literature on "Classroom Libraries".  I put in a federated search. At the same time, I search Google Scholar.... (read more) 

Monday 7 September 2015

Assessment Item 3: Literature Critique

The challenges of the school library as an evolving learning space

Word Count: 2,630

Bibliographic details:

IDEO. (2014). Design thinking for libraries - a toolkit for patron-centered design (p. 121). IDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved from www.designthinkingforlibraries.com
Haycock, K. (2007). Collaboration: Critical success factors for student learning. School Libraries Worldwide13(1), 25–35.
La Marca, S. (2008). Reading spaces (pp. 1–12). Presented at the 38th Annual Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship, Padua, Italy: International Association of School Librarianship. Retrieved from http://www.kzneducation.gov.za/Portals/0/ELITS%20website%20Homepage/IASL%202008/professional%20papers/lamarcaspacespp.pdf
Lin, P., Chen, K., & Chang, S.-S. (2010). Before there was a place called library - Library space as an invisible factor affecting students’ learning. Libri: International Journal of Libraries & Information Services, 60(4), 339–351.
Oblinger, D., G. (2006). Learning how to see. In D. Oblinger G. (Ed.), Learning Spaces (pp. 14.1–14.11). Boulder, CO: Educause. Retrieved from www.educause.edu/learningspaces
Willis, J., Bland, D., Hughes, H., & Elliott-Burns, R. (2013). Reimagining school libraries: emerging teacher pedagogic practices. Presented at the International Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Adelaide, South Australia. Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/66925/7/66925.pdf
 

Outline

This essay will specifically focus on the libraries of educational institutions - in particular school libraries - their role in learning and the way in which design, design thinking and the design process can optimise student outcomes given the financial, physical and time constraints inherent to the school environment.... (read more)