Skipping this week's blog...

I am using up one of my opportunities to skip a blog post. See you next week!

What is critical librarianship?

Critical librarianship is not a topic I have thought much about until this class. I found myself thinking about it all week while at work. What does this mean for my practice as a Library Media Specialist? How do I define critical librarianship when working in a school library? Since beginning to think about what this means for this field, I think I realized that there might not be a single definition. This idea of critical librarianship is probably going to be an ever changing idea. With technology and educational practices changing so often, I have to imagine that our thoughts about critical librarianship will change along with them. So far these are the thoughts and questions I have about my practice as a critical LMS:

I am a teacher librarian above all else. Everyday I try to find new ways to teach information literacy skills. These teaching moments might be as simple as helping a first grader look for a book in the catalog or it might be helping an upper school student work through pages of research notes for a paper.

The library space should be a place that encompasses every type of literacy. Games, music, books, magazines, videos and internet access should be accessible to students. Perhaps some librarians think that a school library should be restricted to curriculum content. Why shouldn't the school library be a place where students can work and play? Obviously there are issues surrounding this idea. If the library offers music and games, will the students use the library for school work? Why does the school library have to be limited to curriculum content only? What about down time for students? Shouldn't the library be a place where they can explore? If public libraries offer these services, why can't school libraries?

It is well known that it is not easy to get teenage boys to read books. If the boys don't want to read books, does that mean the library has nothing to offer them? What about their other interests? Perhaps the definition of literacy needs to be redefined for these students.

Library as a community space: In a school, the library sometimes becomes a dumping ground for students who misbehave or have no place else to go. How can change that practice and make the space more open to all students, faculty and families? Hosting meetings and clubs in the library might help people see that it is more than a place that holds books.

I asked myself a lot of these questions this week. These are questions that I will think about as I continue to teach and think about the library as a place for students growing up in a digital age. I will most likely revisit this topic the more I think about it.

*A note about me: I am a librarian in an all boys school which is why I sometimes use "boys" instead of the general term "students".

First Night of Class

A few things that my group discussed while looking at the Pew Internet and American Life Project Libraries Reports were privacy issues and how technology has effected instant gratification within the classroom. The ideas didn't technically go hand in hand but they were ideas that we were thinking about after looking at a PowerPoint. How can we help students understand that once they have an internet presence it doesn't go away? I think about this issue a lot when I see students posting pictures/information about themselves. How can we be more effective in explaining how important it is to be responsible with their identities?