Week 6, Thing #15

I read three online articles for this task. In "Away from the Icebergs" academic librarian Rick Anderson uses the metaphor of a ship moving through icy waters to illustrate the risks libraries will encounter in moving their "boats" into the future. He identifies three "icebergs":

• Spending a lot of time and money developing "just in case" collections. That is, trying to anticipate users' varied needs in developing our collections. I don't see this as much of a problem in the elementary school library. Our collections need to support the curriculum while at the same time offering students high-quality, high-interest reading materials to encourage independent reading. I don't have extensive resources on every topic students choose for their science fair projects, and never will. But I do lead the students in the right direction, with online resources and assistance in using the public library website.
• Reliance on user education. Here the author is telling us that we can't rely on direct instruction to help library users master the research process. Instead, he says librarians should create library settings and online portals that eliminate "the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning." In an elementary school, the library is a classroom and instruction in the research process and in accessing information is what an elementary LMT does every day. I think the author's point here is valid, but he is an academic librarian working with a very different population (both staff and students).
• The "come to us" model of library service. The author believes in using Web 2.0 resources to make it easier for library users to access information resources outside the walls of the library. I can't argue with his point here. This might be the first place elementary librarians could start in creating their own "Library 2.0" plans. I think we could do a lot to bring the information resources and interactive online learning into the classrooms and the homes of our students.
  

This last point was made very clear in another online article (from School Library Journal): "School Library 2.0: Say Goodbye to Your Mother's School Library". This article, from May 2006, also highlights some other practical uses of Web 2.0 technologies for the school library media teacher. Examples include book discussion blogs and ideas on how to use Web 2.0 features to get beyond the fixed/flexible scheduling problem.
The last piece I read was the Wikipedia Library 2.0 entry.