Working with faculty who teach with media

We are so fortunate to have Kevin Smith as our colleague here at Duke.  Kevin is the Scholarly Communications Officer in the Libraries, and as a librarian and lawyer he is well placed to help librarians, faculty and students navigate the tricky intellectual property terrain.  His blog is a must-read for those in academia who produce and use scholarly information.

At our jam-packed library instruction retreat in May, Kevin was only able to give a short overview of using media for teaching and student assignments.  Last week he gave us a more in depth look at using media, and was able to tell us about how the landscape has changed between May and August with the new DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) exemption.

Kevin helped us understand the difference between “consumptive use” which is essentially making a copy; and “transformative use” that creates something new.  The heart of his message is these tips about using media for student presentations:

• Copyrighted music/film should be incorporated into a new work   
• Use no more than is necessary to make the point.   
• Have a point – the film or music should support the theme of the new work

When looking for music to serve only as a background, and not to make a particular point, Kevin suggested using the "Find" function within the Creative Commons database for CC licensed music.

The DMCA exemption that has caused some excitement allows circumvention, which is decryption of movie DVDs that use CSS encryption.  Decryption by faculty, and by extension students in those courses, is allowed in order to support what Kevin feels are the kinds of activities likely to be considered transformative fair use by the courts. 

At the beginning of his presentation, Kevin noted that while he was listening to our faculty panel at the instruction retreat, he was surprised at how confused faculty seemed to be about giving students new media assignments, because they didn’t feel confident about fair use rights.  After hearing his talk last week, we librarians now have better information to share with faculty and students as they explore digital literacies.

Drum roll, please...

One of the most rewarding aspects of my work in Instruction and Outreach is managing the Robert F. Durden Prize, which recognizes undergraduates’ excellence in research, including their analysis, evaluation and synthesis of sources, and encourages students to make use of the general library collections and services at Duke University.  The award was established three years ago and is funded by alumni who chose to name the prize in honor of Professor Emeritus of history, Bob Durden.

In May of every year, we ask students to submit papers and projects completed for course credit during the previous year, along with faculty statements of support and 500-750 word essays describing their research process and strategies and, of course, the ways that they used the Libraries to complete their work.  These essays are extremely interesting and enlightening -- we learn a great deal about how students make sense of the Libraries' tremendous (and, at times, overwhelming) resources and services, and we are let in on the "aha!" moments that lead to students' impressive discoveries and analyses.

This year, Diane Harvey, Jean Ferguson and I read through every application packet, focusing on research process essays and faculty statements of support in particular.  We then named ten finalists in three categories: first and second-year students, third and fourth year students and students writing honors theses. 

Faculty members Kristen Neuschel and miriam cooke then joined the selection committee, and each of us carefully read the full packets of all ten finalists.  We met yesterday to determine this year's Durden Prize winners:  

• First/Second Year: Xinglai (Lai Lai) Sun for "The Myth of the Addict: Opium Suppression in Late Imperial China"
• Third/Fourth Year: Ryan Brown for “The Native of Nowhere: Nat Nakasa” and Eugenia (Jinny) Cho for "Architectural Acoustics of Symphony Hall” (Ryan and Jinny will split the prize)
• Honors Thesis: Andrew Simon for “Intertwining Narratives: The Copts and their Muslim Relations”

Other finalists are Lindsay Emery, Rose Filler, Caroline Griswold, Brad Lightcap, Brianna Nofil and Eugene Wang.  The work of these ten students represents a range of disciplines, including history, English, dance, physics, economics, Asian and Middle Eastern studies and linguistics.  

We will celebrate the successes of our finalists and winners at the Annual Middlesworth Award and Durden Prize Reception on Friday, October 22 from 3:30-4:30 in the Rare Book Room.  Faculty members and librarians who supported the research of Lai Lai, Ryan, Jinny and Andrew will be commenting on these students' fine work.

This event is part of the Parents' and Family Weekend schedule of events – mark your calendars, and spread the word!

The tale of a high school librarian

A little over a month ago I came to the head of Instruction and Outreach, Diane Harvey, and said as a high school librarian, I would like to learn about what is going on in academic libraries. She said that would be great and as a matter of fact, I could help her by talking about what is going on in high school libraries. So last week I gave an informal presentation to about a dozen librarians with a vested interest in the subject. I tried to be positive about it, but in the end, the news is not good.

I am a new librarian, only two years removed from library school at the University of Pittsburgh, and my head is full of idealistic visions of teaching information literacy, actively collaborating with teachers, and preparing my students to be life-long learners in the 21st century. That has not been my experience to date unfortunately. When I sat down and thought about of all the various roles I fill in my school (i.e. teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, media center program manager, technical support, and webmaster), which ones take up most of my time? Program manager, where I make sure everything in the library is running smoothly on a day-to-day basis, and technical support combine to take up about 70 percent of my time. Where is teacher and instructional partner? At the bottom, taking up about 10% of my time...

Why? The biggest reason is that budget cuts resulted in the elimination of my full-time assistant and I am simply stretched too thin. There are over 1100 students in my school. I am the only librarian. I have student assistants, but they often require as much of my attention as they free up. As technology becomes more prevalent, my responsibilities as tech support grow. In the end, I rarely teach information literacy skills and almost never get the chance to plan lessons together with teachers. I have a plan to change this, however. Like the saying "pick your battles," I've identified the best area for me to focus on to make a difference. So I am positive about this coming school year and finally being able to do what I signed up to do.

Finally, to demonstrate how my experience with budget cuts reflects a national trend, please check out "A Nation Without School Librarians." This Google map is only a few months old, but already has hundreds of locations where school librarian positions have been reduced or eliminated. I fear there are many, many other librarians out there who are also stretched very thin and do not teach information literacy skills as often as we should be.