The Librarian's Dilemma

One of the great things about working in a library is the fact that you get to know the collection really well.

You know to look for things in places other people might not think of - not because the books are "hidden" somewhere difficult to find, but rather because you have the freedom to think laterally.

So, for example, when I started learning German I not only went to the language section of the main collection, I also went to the curriculum collection. A number of academic libraries have a curriculum collection, although the collection may be known by a different name. These are designed to look like school libraries, so that Education students can see what kind of resources might be available to them when they go out to a school to teach.

I went to our CC to see what language resources they had, which is where I found one of my favourite "introduction to German" books Learn German (which I mentioned in my From Something to Nothing post.

I wanted my very own copy, but they appeared to be long out of print, so I ordered something that appeared to be a similar thing under a different title (Easy German) to see if it was related.

Turned out it was a later edition - and a substantially revised one at that. While the cartoon story was still there, the layout of the book had been completely overhauled and the illustrations were somewhat re-arranged as a result. The grammar points in the original had been peppered around the same page as the story, but in the new version they had been pulled out to their own pages and fleshed out a bit more. Oh, and a lot of the exercises from the original weren't there in the later version.

So, now that I knew a later version existed, the logical thing to do would be to order it for the CC... Except that the way things are at the moment, ordering a new edition would eventually lead to the old edition being "disposed of", if you know what I mean.

And, from a design perspective, they were quite different. I found the older version easier to read and more interactive, but the newer version more informative and in depth. If it were up to me, I'd definitely want to keep them both. Such things are, however, rarely up to me.

So I spent several weeks wondering if I should order the later edition of the book, knowing it would probably mean we would the older edition. This is particularly relevant to me at the moment, as I'm toying with the idea of looking at the design of introductory language texts as a Master's project.

In the end I bit the bullet and decided that, since I know own both versions (albeit, only in German - and the book does come in French and Spanish) the only people who will miss out are all of our members. And, hey, they probably wouldn't borrow out the older book anyway. Something about people, these days - they can't seem to see an old book on the shelf if there is a new book sitting right next to it...

A Garden in the Antipodes

In drips and drabs I have read From a Garden in the Antipodes. A poem or two at a time. Sometimes four at once, and then nothing for weeks. Months. It has taken me over a year to read a thin volume of verse. Not because the verse was challenging or difficult – far from it. It trips along lightly and easily, dances gently through the garden, and amiably leads the reader along. I have read it as I have had time and recollection – not for want of inclination. When I have remembered the book was there, and had a moment spare, I have visited Ursula’s garden.

The poems were first written as letters to friends and family, and that is how I’ve experienced them over the year – as correspondence, of a sort, rather than a book of poetry. I have picked up the book with the frequency which I might expect to receive a letter from a friend in New Zealand. Not by design (I’m not quite that clever), but that has been the effect none-the-less.

And over the year I have come to enjoy Ursula’s garden, appreciate the progress of her fuchsias and Omi-Kin-Kan (what was that, anyway? A ficus?), and smile at the adventures and misadventures of Michael, her cat. It’s such a lovely thing to spend a little time there, listening to her tell you about her plans for the box of bulbs she just received, or talk about how hard it is to keep order in that section along the path…

In the last tree poems I have encountered the one that first drew my attention to Mary Ursula Bethell: “Fall”. When I read that poem in an anthology, I found it so amiable that I wanted to spend more time with the person who wrote it, to see what else she had to say.

And the last poem? “Dirge”? I realised after I had read it that anyone who had come to this verse first, without spending time in Ursula’s garden, would probably read it quite differently. It was very strange to read it over a second time, and think how it would seem to a complete “stranger”. This is how one would encounter it in an anthology – divorced from the other poems that illuminate its context.

It makes me wonder how much is missed in an anthology – and wonder why we never seem to republish the original collections anymore. There has been much talk lately about the way buying music song-by-song is cheating listeners out of the experience of the album as a whole – but that’s how we’ve been packaging poetry for years.

The anthology is the iTunes library (or mixed tape) of poetry. Even in anthologies of verse from the same poet, the poems are removed from their original context. Whatever vision the poet might have had when originally setting out the order of verse is lost.

I don’t think we fully appreciate how the poem we have just read influences the way we read the next one. At the end of a book of verse about gardening, one has a very clear picture to go with the imagery used in “Dirge”. Found by itself amongst poems about, say, war, or the woes of 20th Century society, the same poem would have a different resonance and evoke different images.

I have said that I first encountered “Fall” in an anthology, and that I enjoyed it and wanted to seek out the poet. I was fortunate that my library held an old copy of From a Garden in the Antipodes, and I could read it in its original setting – finding it where it fell in the pattern of poems. Where the poet set it (like a jeweller sets a stone in a broach). I am glad I encountered “Dirge” her, in its original setting, the first time I read it.

But there are so many poems that I can’t read in their original settings. While individual poems (the poets’ “best of” lists) are constantly republished in anthologies, the original books are curiosities held in a handful of libraries. I don’t have access to them. While novels are republished time and time again, it is the fate of books of poetry and short stories to be broken up and sold for spare parts.

And that’s a pity.

I have nothing against anthologies – I think they are an excellent way to meet writers and get a feel for poems or short stories from a particular place or genre. I just think we shouldn’t be neglecting the original collections: the book of poems or short stories that the author first negotiated with the publishers.

DIRGE (by Mary Ursula Bethell)

Easter. And leaves falling.
Easter. And first autumn rains.
Easter. And dusk stealing
Our bright working daylight
And cold night coming down
In which we may not work.

Easter. And morning bells
Chime in the late dark.
Soon those fluttering birds
Will seek a more genial clime
Time has come to light fires
For lack of enlivening sun.

Summer’s arrow is spent,
Stored her last tribute,
So, now, we plant our bulbs
With assured vision,
And, now, we sow our seeds
Sagely for sure quickening.

So, purging our borders
We burn all rubbish up,
That all weak and waste growth,
That all unprofitable weeds,
All canker and corrosion,
May be consumed utterly.

These universal bonfires
Have a savour of sacrifice.
See how their clean smoke,
Ruddy and white whorls,
Rises to the still heavens
In plumy spirals.

You take me – yes, I know it –
Fresh from your vernal Lent.
These ashes I will now spread
For nutriment about the roses,
Dust unto fertile dust,
And say no word more.

Check it out!

Have you ever seen a book on a library shelf and thought: "that looks interesting" or "I love that book, I'm glad they have a copy here"? Did you then check it out? If not, you may not see it the next time you come into the library.

If you want a library to keep a book, you need to check it out.

It's a myth that libraries keep everything. It's not even remotely physically possible (no library has that much space), and studies have proven that the more books a library has on the shelf the less likely people are to find what they want.

So, librarians regularly go through the collection to find books that aren't being used. We get rid of these books to make way for new ones - it's called "weeding". If we can, we try to find a new home for the books. If we can't, we rip off the covers and throw them in the bin (kind of like a vet putting down a dog that can't be saved).

When it comes to academic libraries, there can be a lot of rules in place about what we can and can't do with weeded books. While a public library can sell the books they've weeded, an academic library can only give them to certain people. If those people don't want the books, then we have to destroy them.

It's unpleasant, but it's a fact of life. We can't keep getting new books without getting rid of the older ones, and the best method we have for deciding what books we keep and what books we weed is:

"How often has that book been checked out in the last few years?"

Yes, we know a lot of books are read and used in the library without being checked out, but we can't track that. And, yes, we know some books are important for historical reasons and should be kept - but we don't always know those reasons. So, if a book hasn't been checked out for the last five years and is fifteen or twenty years old...

Do you know who has the power to save the books and make sure they stay on the shelves? You.

If you see a book and you think the library should keep it, you can do one very simple thing to help ensure its survival: check it out.

Heck, you don't even have to take it home. You can check it out and put it straight in the returns chute if you want to. That would be weird (you may as well take it home and enjoy it for a couple of weeks), but useful. It gives us a record for that book - it tells us it is being used and that people still want it.

So the next time you are in a library (any library) and you see a book that looks interesting, or is a personal favourite, why not check it out? It can make a real difference to the book's survival.

Hot Buttered

Some days it's worth making the effort to turn up to work when you don't feel 100% with it. Some days you just end up having a pocket full of butter.

For future reference: Putting a pat of butter in your pocket is a bad idea.

Did I Mention I've Had a Paper Published?

I'm sure I must have mentioned it once or twice.

Perhaps to everyone in earshot. Whether they cared the first time I mentioned it or not.

Anyway, for the record:

Bryan, S. (2011). Extensive Reading, Narrow Reading and second language learners: implications for libraries. Australian Library Journal, 60(2), 113-122.

I may have stopped doing my happy dance, but then again there are no guarantees.

Stupid Informit

You know, researching with a head-ache would be easier if Informit wasn't trying to mess with me every time I attempted to save a citation to EndNote. Or, for that matter, when clicking on any button on the search page.

"Let's just change what search we're doing from one page to the next! That won't cause any difficulties. Also, when she tries to save her selected results, we'll just give her a different sent, and refuse to unmark them. That sounds useful. And, hey, why bother including details like the year and journal title in the record anyway. It's not like anyone ever looks at those..."

Stupid Informit.

From Nothing to Something

The German subject I'm taking at the moment is promoted as being an introductory course for beginners who have never studied German before, but it is based around a text-book programme that is not ideal for such a course. Especially in regards to distance learners

Deutsch: Na Klar! is a programme for beginners, but not for "true" beginners. The information it covers is basic, but not introductory.

The book/programme seems to be working on two assumptions:

1. It assumes students have had some exposure to German previously

Or at least some sort of language learning. It's undeniable. If you've never done anything with German in the past, you will struggle with this book. The Introduction is supposed to ease you into the course, instead it clearly works on the assumption that you already know something about German or language learning. Not much, but more than nothing. This is particularly obvious when you look at the explanations offered for many of the concepts covered in the Introduction and first chapter. It's just not sufficient to support someone who has no experience with the language or with language learning.

Which brings me to the second assumption:

2. It assumes you have regular class time and can consult with teachers and students

Once again, you can't avoid this fact. For one thing, the explanations are pretty sparse - if you have a teacher to elaborate on them and go into more detail, then this is fine, but when you are studying on your own it's a bit of a handy cap. Also, a large number of the exercises given in the book are for classroom activities. You need to undertake an activity with one or more classmates, and then discuss the activity with the rest of the class.

Neither of these assumptions make this a good programme to use with distance students who are learning German for the first time. I have a slight advantage in that I intentionally took an evening course in Basic German last year to prepare for this Diploma. If I hadn't, I think I'd be having a very rough time of it. I know some of the other distance learners who tune in for the Monday night online class are struggling. One hour a week with someone you can't see is not sufficient to make up for the short-falls in the programme.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad programme. It has it's good points, and isn't too difficult. The problem is that it can't stand on it's own. You need the classroom environment to support it, and you need to have had some exposure to German ahead of encountering it.

I also have the advantage of being a librarian who has just completed a Master's project on using resources to support language learners, and I've been reading all about autonomous language learning techniques. As a result, I've been making up for some of the programme's short-falls by actively using other books and resources. For a while now, I've essentially been using two textbooks (not to mention a whole pile of other things, when I can get my hands on them).

Deutsch Heute is probably a better book for distance learners, in my humble opinion, as it gives more thorough explanations of the grammar and vocabulary points. I've been using the eighth edition of this book to augment the fifth edition of Na Klar. It has, in a way, become my classroom. When I want to get more explanation of something, or see a different range of examples, I turn to this book.

I've been using the eighth edition because that's what we had in our library. I'd say it was probably the text book used at the university back in 2005. I tried to buy a copy of that edition, but could only order the ninth. I'm hoping the ninth edition is not radically different from the eighth, and hasn't decided to move more information from the book to the Internet. I'm all for hypermedia augmentation, but I don't like it when you have to use the Internet because you can't get what you need from the book.

Now, having said all of that, I don't think Deutsch Heute is a suitable programme for absolute beginners, either. Neither of these books really work on the assumption that the student is starting from nothing

I've noticed this in other "introductory" text-books as well - especially those aimed at "academic" learners. They never seem designed to take you from nothing to something.

Books aimed at children or "life-long-learners" (in other words, people who aren't studying with any serious purpose) are much better at this. In fact, the best book I've found, so far, for taking someone from nothing to something (in German) is a book called Learn German by Nicole Irving.

Now, this is a very interesting book. For one thing, it's a book that knows its theory. The use of an adventure story to carry the dialogue; the way the dialogue is used to illustrate key grammar points; the use of simple charts and tables to describe language points; the comic-book style use of pictures to help comprehension; the use of "exercises" that bear a strong resemblance to games... These ideas were all in the "top of the pops" for the design of language material in the 1990s (at least at the school level). The book was, quite obviously, written to take advantages of all of the latest and greatest ideas that had been discussed in the literature of the time. There's also a tape that goes with the book, but my library didn't have a copy of it, so I can't comment on what was on it - besides, you don't need the tape to use the book.

For another thing, it's actually three books. Sort of. Perhaps it's better to describe it as a shell. The plot of the story, the illustrations and the design and layout of the book were used for three separate books: Learn German, Learn French and Learn Spanish. No aspect of the story or illustrations is particular to a given culture, so the dialogue and grammar descriptions could be converted to any language and the book would still work. The name of the town and characters is changed to be more typically French or Spanish (or whatesver), and away you go.

This book was specifically designed to take someone from nothing to something - and something decent, at that. It isn't focused on teaching you conversational German/French/Spanish, but rather give you a foundational knowledge about the language and its grammar - something you can then build on. And all while telling a story that was reasonably fun.

I found this book to be a great help when I started this whole German schtick last year - it pushed me ahead of what I was learning in the evening course and put me in a better position for understanding the material in these so-called "introductory" German courses. It was truly introductory.

Academic language courses need to consider starting with something like that when dealing with complete beginners. They need to give that first chapter or section over to those of us who need the basics introduced and elaborated, rather than just "covered" or "touched on".

Anyone designing an introductory language programme needs to start with the concept of taking people from nothing to something before trying to build on foundations that haven't been adequately laid.

I'd recommend Nicole Irving's Learn German/French/Spanish books to anyone who is thinking of learning that language... but they're out of print. You may be able to get a second hand copy, or borrow one from a library, but Usborne (the publisher) never reprinted them. I guess they just weren't as popular as the First Thousand Words in Something-Or-Other books that have been in print for ever. More's the pity.

I've ordered something by Irving from Usborne that I hope will be a kind of later edition of this book. I'll let you know if it's any good.