Johnson is standing on one leg

I found the whole concept of a post – literate society as Johnson defines it ‘as those who can read but who choose to meet their primary information and recreational needs through audio, video, graphics and gaming’ ( Johnson,2010, p.1) as tragic. While I completely agree that that is indeed what many people do, to me it’s not a balanced diet. With the exception of perhaps audio, what they are consuming is about instant gratification – but they are not feeding their imagination. There is such a wonderfully creative process in reading words and then using your imagination to create the accompanying scenario. Yes the author describes the characters and events but it is the reader who transforms that into their own ‘movie’ scenario and fleshes out the scenes. When you watch a DVD instead of reading a book, you are looking at someone else’s depiction and interpretation of the plot. It’s the realisation of their imagination – not yours. Personally I think it should be about balance. I love watching DVDs, I love going to the movies but I also love reading books and using my imagination to flesh out how I think the characters look and the scenes in which they find themselves. Then again my sons –who only read nonfiction and love biographies of sporting and political figures wouldn’t see what I am making a fuss about! Viewing post-literacy as ‘a return to more natural forms of multisensory communication – speaking, storytelling, dialogue, debate and dramatisation’ ( Johnson,2010, p.2) is fine but don’t deny the richness that comes from reading as having value. I have always felt extremism in any form can be dangerous. Johnson is standing on one foot - just as I would be if I didn't see the value in online reading and pursuits like gaming. I do see their value - all of their value but I prefer more of a balanced approach to life personally and would always promote reading whether it is through an e-book or a p-book. Libraries For A Post literate Society by Ben Johnson: http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/libraries-for-a-post-literate-society.html

What Do I Know About Collection Development?

As this topic officially starts today at CSU I thought it might be useful to reflect on what I know about Collection Development. I have only been in my job for 14 months, but I know the following: *resources 10 years and older, resources in poor condition and resources evaluated as no longer useful undergo 'deselection' -also known as weeding. (We usually offer them to charity.) I choose the resources for 'deselection' but don't do the process myself, this is done by a Library Officer. *through collaboration with Heads of Year and Heads of Curriculum I know what resources are needed by each year group. They sometimes make suggestion for the acquisition of resources for collection development, but it is more likely that when I evaluate a collection before it is about to be taught and determine a need, I investigate and acquire the resources. *some new topics - like Ancient China and India are a nightmare to resource because it is hard to find resources at the appropriate language level for those year groups. Very little is written for children on those topics. So I have to ask why were these topics decided upon wthout considering how difficult they would be to resource? It was before I arrived, but I think the people choosing the topics should have considered availability of resources before making their decision. *It's really hard to consider collection development. There are so many areas to evaluate and then develop. Reading this I realise a change plan is needed which systematically assesses and devlops the library collection and I don't have one! *technology and its apps/ebooks need to be considered for collection development. I have very little in the way of technology and everytime I ask for something I am told the budgets have been cut and there is no money available. This is a big problem for me and for the library. *I think I need to learn alot about collection development because at the moment - apart form the new topics- I have a pretty ad hoc system of collection development. That's what I enjoy about this course - what I am learning usually applies directly to my work!

Revised Version of Reflection on iPads in my library.

In my last post I mistakenly inferred that all children in our school had been given an iPad. In actual fact it is just the Year 6 students (approx. 200) in the Junior School who have received them and Year 7 and 8 in the Senior School. That will teach me not to click 'preview'. Here is the amended blog. We have 8 classes per grade. This year each Year 6 child was given an iPad. One benefit I hadn't thought of before, was that the children no longer need to queue at the OPACS to search for resources. Library staff emailed the OPAC link to the students and in a library lesson it took just seconds for the children to create a shortcut to Olly. More and more children are choosing to read on a Kindle or iPad. Next year I am hoping to have some iPads for library use. We currently just have one iPad which is mainly used for admin purposes and 4 are on order, due to arrive in the next few weeks. The acquisition of iPads then impacts collection acquisition and management. Money previously spent on books now needs to be spent on iPads, iPad cases to prevent them being damaged and apps. Apps need to evaluated and installed. Apps need constant maintenance as children inadvertently delete them. iPads needs to be regularly charged. It all takes time. I love my own iPad - and I don't know how I survived before I got it. Recently a friend, Sarah, went to visit her father in Canada. Her husband told me he wasn't sure which he missed more, Sarah or the iPad!

Classification - we can't live without it!

Reading about classification reminded me of a time when I decided to organise a month's menus for our family at a time. I decided on the recipes, drew up a table to cover the month, organised the meals so there was plenty of variety, then drew up an accompanying shopping list week by week which was sequentially organised according to the layout of the supermarket. After two months I threw it all away. We were eating like kings - gourmet meals every evening and the food bill was astronomical! I did, however, come to appreciate the classification system in the supermarket. With so many ingredients to buy each week being able to classify the ingredients on my shopping list at least helped to speed up the shopping trip. Our meals are less organised now - more a case of 'What's in the fridge to cook with?' -but at least I'm not broke! Classification? We couldn't live without it!

I felt I needed to take some time out tonight to reflect on the topic - 505 that I am doing at the moment. I handed my assignment in early as I had to go to Bangkok (a promise to my son and his girlfriend that I wanted to keep)so I have had the weekend to 'chill out', tonight I will be catching up on my sleep and tomorrow I will be launching myself into the exercises necessary for the next part of the course. RDA was really interesting, I loved reading about it and comparing it to AACR2. However, I struggled to understand the whole concept of FRAD and FRBR. Maybe when I get to work with it I will be able to come to grips with it better. Also I need to remember it takes time to assimilate all this information before you can apply it. Learning how to create subject headings using SCIS was great! I am a long way off being an independent cataloguer, but I worked really hard. I didn't worry about the hierarchy of the headings as Anne (Lecturer) said it wasn't necessary, but it was really interesting to see how subject headings could be established. I have no idea of how I will go but I was really happy with what I had done. I am learning to recognise that I can't expect myself to be an expert at everything I am learning. It is a gradual process and to be a good cataloguer will take time. However, I do feel I have established a good solid foundation on which to build. I was a bit nervous about how to reference the ETL 505 2A assignment. It wasn't like other assignments, I wasn't researching information. I did the best I could to work it out, and I really hope I have referenced it correctly. Time to go -only 5 hours sleep last night between getting home from the airport and getting up to work,so I am exhausted!

Why Do we Need Subject Access?

Subject access is vitally important. The children in my library come to the library on the whole to: *find a fiction book to read *find resources on a specific subject There are specific 'mechanisms' (Hider, 2010, p.99) that libraries use to help their users find information resources relevant to a specific subject. There are 3 steps to this process: 1.The cataloguer has to 'decide what the information resource is about' (Hider, 2010, p.99) 2. Transform that information into 'terms (words and phrases) or symbols which represent the subject'(Hider, 2010, p.99) 3. Provide 'access to these terms and symbols through the library information retrieval system'(Hider, 2010, p.99) Basically we need to provide subject access in order to meet our users' needs. This is achievable in two ways: The library information retrieval system needs to: ** 'provide access to the subject of the information resources in the system' (Hider, 2010, p.99) ** 'provide guidance on what has been published or made available about a particular subject' (Hider, 2010, p.99) Most catalogue searches are undertaken to find out: 1. if the library has access to a specific information resource (A KNOWN ITEM SEARCH) 2. if the library as access to information resources that 'deal with a particular subject' (A SUBJECT SEARCH) (Hider, 2010, p.99) So far so good! This makes sense.

Learning More About Bibliographic Standards

I was interested to know that not every institution produces full records. I knew that Charles A. Cutter first proposed three levels of cataloguing (Chan, 2007, p.81). AACR2, unlike previous standards, advantageously accommodated, ‘three levels of bibliographic description’; brief, medium and full, to meet the cataloguing needs of different libraries, of all sizes (Chan, 2007, p.81). However, according to Hider (2010, p.36) whether cataloguers use brief, medium or full records according to the needs of their library ‘they are still adhering to the same basic standard’. I loved Cutter’s explanation of how full records should be. He suggested, ‘the information resource needs to be described only as fully as is necessary to set it apart from other resources, and only as fully as will make it easy to find’ (Hider, 2010, p.36). Research results from the Centre for Catalogue Research in England was as follows: ‘The conclusion suggests that much of the information normally included in the catalogue entry is very rarely used by readers, and its inclusion makes catalogues difficult to use with the result that some items may not be found’ (Seal, in Hider, 2010, p.36). The conclusion must be to consider the needs of your users and choose the level of bibliographic description to meet those needs. The point is made by Hider though, that considering the needs of the user might actually mean enhancing records (Hider, 2010, pp.36-37) which may mean adding more metadata, especially if it provides ‘subject access to information resources’! Hider gave three examples: • Adding an abstract (e.g summary of a book’s or film’s plot) • Adding keywords from an index or contents page to improve subject access • Adding links to web-related material, like information about the author This makes total sense to me. I have almost finished evaluating every picture book in my library in terms of how they relate to the Learner Profile, for a Teacher Support document. I included a cover image of each book, my summary of each story and where possible I included a link to any web-related material that I thought relevant. I hope that it will meet my users’ needs! Now I am thinking perhaps that this information (ie. which attribute of the Learner Profile the book relates to) would be useful in the records too. Food for thought!