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.

What are all those high schoolers doing in the library?

In preparation for Western Alamance media coordinator and Duke Libraries volunteer Tim Johnson's talk next week, What's happening in high school libraries?, I find my thoughts shifting to the work that we've done with pre-college students this summer.

The Duke Libraries have a long history of collaborating with the Duke University Talent Identification Program (TIP), housed close to East Campus and responsible for administering a number of Summer Studies Programs and Summer Institutes.  This year has been no different -- with over a week to go in TIP Summer Studies Term II, Duke librarians have lead a whopping 32 instruction sessions for eager and motivated TIP students.  Research sessions have been lead by science, social science and humanities librarians alike and have included topics ranging from vampires in contemporary culture to the energy of physics.  

And our work with TIP students doesn't end with research instruction sessions -- Duke Libraries staff make it their mission to welcome these hard-working students and their equally hard-working instructors.  They enjoy many of the same privileges that all Duke students and faculty benefit from, including the ability to check out books and DVDs, access to all of our online resources and access to group study rooms, computer clusters and reading rooms.  If you've been in the library at all this summer, there's a good chance you've run into boisterous (but always gracious and respectful) groups of young scholars with their neon yellow and orange lanyards on their way to research the cancer of biology or draft their social psychology research proposals.

We realize that the time that these students and instructors spend at Duke is short (just two weeks in some cases), but we hope that they leave campus with a favorable impression of the Perkins Library System and a better sense of the role that the research library can play in their high school work and in their future scholarship.

There is, after all, a good chance that we'll see some of these students back at Duke in a few short years...

Standard(s) Operating Procedure

Perhaps it is only in the small, rarefied world of library instruction that an appointment to the ACRL Information Literacy Standards Committee is something to get excited about (okay, maybe ‘excited’ is too strong).  I am happy to be part of this group for several reasons.  One is that I get to work with some smart and energetic librarians like Ellysa Cahoy from Penn State and Bob Schroeder from Portland State.  Another reason is that I have an ambivalent relationship with the ACRL Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education (okay, people who know me well can snort now…) and as part of the committee I get to be up close and personal with them.

So, how do I really feel about the standards?  First, I’m glad that there are standards, because accrediting bodies and other such groups love the fact that standards exist.  When I was doing learning outcomes assessment work at the University of Maryland, those of us whose discipline had standards (like engineering and education) were in much better shape when it came to writing student learning outcomes assessment, because we had national guidelines to draw on.  But, on the other hand, how useful are the ACRL standards when it comes to planning the library instruction that we do every day?

Sometimes the ACRL standards seem a bit abstract or lofty for the average 50 minute instruction session. Granted, the standards encourage a degree of collaboration with classroom faculty that recognizes that some of the standards and outcomes simply don’t belong in a library instruction session.  A more pressing question is, how have the standards held up since they were developed ten years ago?  Do they deal adequately with changes in technologies and the recognition of new literacies? 

The good news is that ACRL has authorized a revision of the standards.  The Information Literacy Standards committee will be designing a process by which that revision will get done.  It promises to be a long, complex, but ultimately rewarding process.  I hope that we can learn from the recent revision of the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, as well as the discipline specific standards developed through ACRL.
I hope that the revised standards are relevant, clear and above all useful.

Summer Reading Advice

Relatively speaking, the summer is when most people have the most time to read for fun and since I am a visiting school librarian from a local high school, I've decided to share my thoughts on something I'm very familiar with, young adult literature. There are some absolutely wonderful stories out there that you may have never considered reading because they are sold in the "young adult" sections of bookstores. Well, I'm here to enlighten you.

My personal favorite is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It is the story of a sixteen year-old girl who volunteers to take her little sister's place in a televised fight to death with 23 other teenagers called the Hunger Games (hence the title). Explaining the plot in one sentence cannot, however, indicate how great this story is. I absolutely did not want to stop reading it. Every chapter ends with a sentence that will make you gasp and frantically start the next chapter even though it is 2a.m. and you wanted to go to bed. The book is an amazing mix of adventure, suspense, romance, philosophy, and social commentary that will change the way you think about young adult literature.

Another excellent choice is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It was originally published in Australia as an adult novel, but has been marketed as a young adult book here in the United States. The story follows a young German girl named Liesel Meminger and her foster parents living near Munich during World War II. One of the best parts of the book is the identity of the narrator... Death himself. Can you think of a more significant time in human history than the Holocaust to be the backdrop for a story told by Death? The pace of the book is quite slow, but the time it takes to read it allows you to become all the more connected emotionally to the characters. An absolutely worthwhile, powerful read.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is a story like you have never read (or seen) before. At 530+ pages it looks intimidating, but mixed in with the text are actually 300 pages of original charcoal drawings by the author that are reminiscent of watching a black and white silent film. Hugo Cabret is an orphan living secretly in Paris' main train station during the early 1900s. There, he meets a girl who might be able to help him unlock the secret of his last memory of his father. This spellbinding mystery can be read over a single weekend and I highly recommend it.

All of these books can be found in the Duke library system. If they are checked out already, get your name on the hold list immediately. Take a break from your academic journals, theses, and dissertations. Pick up one these stories, relax, and enjoy! You won't regret it.

Librarians descend upon our nation's capital

I was among the over 19,000 librarians who made themselves at home in Washington, D.C. for the annual conference of the American Library Association this past weekend.

My experience at ALA was a bit of a whirlwind -- I arrived in D.C. at Sunday afternoon in time for a current issue discussion on the role that academic libraries -- and instruction librarians in particular -- play in supporting undergraduate researchers.  The discussion, organized by ACRL's Instruction Section, featured interesting conversation among instruction librarians from institutions ranging from Reed College to Michigan State University.

My key take-away from the discussion:  Undergraduate research and the academic programs that support them look different at each institution represented on Sunday afternoon, and it is our job as librarians to get to know our particular institution's culture and work to communicate to our students that we are here to support their efforts, whether it be through research consultations, special library services developed with their needs in mind, opportunities for them to present or store the products of their labor, or library prizes that reward truly outstanding use of library collections.

Monday brought a series of programs in the morning -- the highlight was "Assessment for the Rest of Us: Informal Techniques You Can Use," where we heard about 10 relatively simple assessment projects going on at libraries around the country.  Lunch with friends from UNC-SILS was followed by the a heated debate (and I'm not kidding here!) about both the virtues and challenges of Open Source Software -- the Kuali OLE project that Duke Libraries is a part of got quite a bit of attention as a cutting-edge ILS concept.

Next up was a walk through the exhibits, where I got to talk with folks from Serials Solutions, RefWorks, ERIC, EBSCO and meet Duke's new LibGuides representative.  The day ended with a presentation on ways that academic librarians are making use of the technologies that their patrons are already using -- new to me were using WordPress to create subject guides and Shelfari for feeds of book cover images.

This was my second experience at ALA Annual (the first was in 2007, also in D.C., after my first year as a Master's student at UNC-SILS), and I must say that I still don't feel that I have the conference experience down pat.  I came away, once again, feeling as though I had missed out on a number of key programs, receptions, meetings and presentations -- and my hunch was confirmed as I skimmed the Twitter backchannel and then read others' experiences, like Jennifer Howard's, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, or those captured on the American Libraries blog. 

My interest has certainly been piqued, so I'll be showing my face at ALA Annual again -- and next time, I vow to leave only once I've been treated to lunch or cocktail hour by at least one vendor, heard a couple of fabulous authors wax poetic on the importance of libraries and developed a better understanding of ALA sections and committees -- and all of the meetings and programs that accompany them.

I think that most seasoned academic librarians would assure me that it takes a time or two at ALA Annual to figure it all out -- or maybe I'm just a bit slow on this front.