LIBE 465: Final Reflection
Students in Canada today need to be able to think rationally and logically. With more and more sources of information, both print and electronic, and the increasing difficulty of ensuring that students can derive meaning from this information, the role of the teacher-librarian becomes central. Teacher-librarians are skilled in accessing and evaluating information regardless of delivery system, book or computer, and providing leadership in the appropriate use of newer information technologies.
I) Organizing Information: Theory and Practice
If any statement sums up the new world of learning and teaching, this is it. Gone are the days when information was contained almost solely within the walls of the library; we have entered a new age of endless information in multiple formats. As librarians, we still have the responsibility of organizing the books and other physical resources within our libraries, linking those resources to the curriculum, and organizing and making those resources easily accessible to students and staff, but we now have the additional job of including parallel and appropriate online resources as part of the library collection, organizing them, and making them easily accessible as well. This new era of internet information means that teacher librarians must become internet experts, and we must be able to teach students and teachers alike how best to use what can be found there. We need new skills, thus we must continue to learn and explore, so that we can help our students “thrive in the new world of education.” It’s a new world to explore, and librarians are the explorers, interpreters, and organizers of this vast new space. More than ever, we must be both organized and creative as we work with our resources to provide easy access for all users.
Learning about MARC records was the most challenging part of this course. Fortunately, many tools help me catalog books in a standardized way, and using MARC is not a skill that I have to master. L4U, my library cataloging system, imports MARC records, then translates them into the records that appear on the OPAC when a catalog search is done. I add additional information to the records in the acquisitions screen, and this in turn adds to the various fields in the MARC record, creating a complete bibliographic entry for any given resource.
The most useful skill I learned from this section of the course was copy cataloging. In fact, I had been doing this for many months after a librarian friend told me that she always has the Vancouver Island Public Library (VIRL) site open and she inputs information from that website to complete the often incomplete or inaccurate data provided by the L4U MARC record search. Sometimes the record I import is complete, and I only have to add some local information (loan type, reading level, price, etc.) to complete the entry. Many of the records I import are incomplete, so I end up adding information. My procedure is to look on the VIRL or Vancouver Public Library (VPL) websites to find subject headings, summaries, and call numbers. When I find no record to import (generally books published in the UK or Australia), I use the CIP. CIP can be woefully inadequate (and I now understand why), so in those cases, I create my own record. I check the back of the book for a summary (or read the book if it is short), and fill in as much as I can. I look up similar books on VIRL to find subject headings, or choose subjects already in my list of subject headings on L4U. As I create the record, I consider various things: how much the particular resource is likely to be used, how much time I want to spend on a record, and how many books I’ve already cataloged that day!
III) The Organizational Tools
I now understand what the OPAC is, and finally ours is posted on the school website under its own tab. The next step is to make the catalog a functioning link to library resources for students and staff. For students, this will mean creating some lessons, and then finding time in the computer lab to familiarize them. Teachers will only need a brief introduction. I now know that I need a lot more training on L4U. Since cataloging has been my primary objective, I have only learned the most basic functions, including acquisitions and basic circulation. I would like to be able to generate reports, make global changes, do inventory, and more.
Creating a website for my school library (http://acwsalctalibrary.weebly.com) has been a great way to organize online resources to complement the physical resources in the library. I like the flexibility of the website platform, and the ease with which I can now present and organize these resources. I can customize content for students and teachers, and I can communicate with students outside of library class time. The website and continuous physical changes in the library (including shelving and weeding, creating sections and special displays, books in baskets for easier access, etc.) both help to make access to books and information easy and fun for students, while at the same time building skills for finding and using the books, resources and information they need.
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