Next Chapter: Summit Design Challenges
September 17, 2011 in Blog, Summit by Laura Deisley
The event starts now.
Your voice and that of our broader community is critical to the success of Next Chapter. Therefore, we ask each of you to propose one or more design challenges or issues that impact your thinking about the future of your library or libraries in general. Think locally and globally.
We have established four categories to organize our thinking. We’ll assemble the challenges under each category and participants will vote on the challenges, narrowing them to three broad ideas that our cohorts will explore during the summit. We have provided some primers under each category to help frame them and guide your thinking, but remember your questions are not limited to these primers. The categories are:
Purpose: In what way will visitors benefit? Strategies for delivering the desired benefits? Strategies for the communication of the benefits? Sustainable organizations? Cultural transformations?
People: Consider internal and external constituents. What is the desired library experience? Skills required to provide desired experiences? How are the constituent relationships encouraged and nutured?
Things: The physical space? And the stuff in the space? Centralized? De-centralized? How does it transition from center of information to center of an ecosystem? What does it look like?
Behavior: How does the space act? What are the desired interactions within and around library? How does library support interactions?
For those of you who are attending, you may bring ideas with you as well!
Diane Cordell said on September 18, 2011
Challenge: to make the library as inclusive as possible, more reflective of the rich variety found in the “real world,” without compromising security or disrupting learning time. Include parents & community members as co-learners and information sources; extend hours of operation; have cross-curricular, multi-grade level interaction; blend library/gallery/museum/laboratory; something else?
Cathy Murphree said on September 18, 2011
While I very much “get” that the library will no longer be (just) a physical space, I do hope the K-12 library will have a physical component that draws in, energizes, enables collaboration–that it’s one of THE places to be–where the action is, etc., as opposed to a place to go to for help. I’d like to see users flocking there rather than retreating there when they need a quiet space–although I think quite spaces are important, too.
Dorcas Hand said on September 18, 2011
I sit in an unusual cat bird seat. I believe all the professional rhetoric about best practices: flexible schedule, no filtering, open access, collaboration. I’ve pushed my particular envelope in those directions for all my years in the job. But I lead the library for a religiously affiliated PS-8 school with a mission that is interpreted to require filtering. We allow no personal information devices on campus, and we continue a quite traditional curriculum that implements technology aggressively within those constraints. I think the age of our students is a key additional constraint in my particular equation, but one that is not uncommon in the world of independent schools.
As I look to reimagine my library of the future, I’m caught in a push/pull between embracing 4G opportunities (and beyond) and obsessing about what restrictions they require. My challenges on a daily basis:
• How to be indispensable to faculty, students and families
• How to work beyond the required K-4 core enrichment schedule to develop more flexible access when the library facility is not centrally located
• What book technologies are appropriate to our littlest children? Not what technology can they enjoy, but what actually facilitates their growth as learners without limiting their growth in other areas?
• How to be an essential curricular resource for all teachers
• How to keep a strong physical print collection and simultaneously and wisely move into the new world of ebooks, in all their many definitions.
• How to open digital access in the face of tight filtering and strict firewalls that preclude many online applications
• How to better manage the tug-of-war between a branded and highly structured school website and the need for more flexibility to adapt new digital opportunities to our purposes, even with young children
I ground my reimagination in the knowledge that
• We have built a strong tech team (Library, tech teachers, Ed Tech & IT) that collaborates weekly to
o Write policies to increase open access and then push for implementation of these policies
o Build faculty support for broader access to hardware and software, and to study programs at other schools
• An administration that has continued to fund the library well
• A community that agrees on the need for a strong library program
• A community that reads widely at all levels
I am working towards a library that is virtual at the same time it is physical, so that teachers have access to our resources without walking across campus and families have access from home. And we work to collaborate with teachers often to be sure they are getting everything they can from our resources and our teaching.
As I re-read this, I’m not sure it really answers the call. And I have no idea which category this fits under. Maybe my over-arching challenge is how to move ahead without throwing out the baby with the bathwater – that should narrow it down!
JMc said on September 20, 2011
Challenges:
How to serve the community more efficiently without making them overly dependent or encouraging “learned helplessness”?
How to encourage more independent learning outside of the school calendar in ways other than traditional summer reading, etc.?
How to educate members of the school community beyond students? Does educating parents about school resources encourage a worse “helicopter” effect?
Lane Young said on September 20, 2011
Challenge: how can you integrate a digital and physical space in a way that promotes the values you want to promote in a library?
Christi Shaner said on September 20, 2011
My challenge is how to bring all of these wonderful new and exciting activities and spaces into the library while at the same time maintaining some form of decorum for those students who truly need a quiet space to study independently. We only have one large room and have tried very hard to incorporate many different learning styles and activities.
Eileen Schroeder said on September 20, 2011
Purpose: We’ve always focused on providing resources or access to resources and developing student skills in accessing and using information. As we hopefully move more toward students taking charge of their own learning and creating their own knowledge, how does the library support the conversations that need to take place between students and resources, between students and students, and between students in the outside world. How can we do this in terms of our physical and virtual presence? What new skills do we need to focus on with students as they manage their own information environments?
This also leads to the question of what the library’s virtual presence functions. How will we continue to incorporate the librarian’s guidance in these conversations if the students aren’t necessarily coming to a physical place?
Angela Sellati said on September 20, 2011
Our biggest design challenge is creating a space that is inviting to middle and high school students, but still allows those who need quiet in order to study, a place to go.
Julia Osteen said on September 23, 2011
As we look toward the future of school libraries, how do we create a blended learning environment that incorporates both physical and online components? How can we engineer a physical space that allows for flexibility of physical arrangement? How do we meet the needs of all learners through the physical and online components?
Brittany Emge said on September 23, 2011
I’d like to look at how a library space can act as a nurturing social environment, a quiet place to learn, reflect, and create, and a space the students can contribute to. This space will be physical and virtual, but will need to cater to a wide range of ages and purposes.
Also, since libraries are so dependent on technology, my school has discussed combining the tech dept and the library in future building plans, making them one large unit for the students to access. Is this efficient or overwhelming?
Bo Adams said on September 23, 2011
Purpose: How can we transform an egg crate culture by using the library or learning commons as connective tissue among an overly departmentalized curriculum?
People: How can the library or learning commons act to help teachers think of themselves less as “I teach English” to more “How can we approach this issue and work on this problem our world face?” How can a library integrate us as problem solvers with various perspectives?
Things: How can the library be the Steve Johnson “coffee house” that unites learners around community issues that need addressing?
Behavior: How can the space facilitate community learning and motivated problem solving?