The Students Are Back

Ah, the pitter patter of not-so-tiny feet...

The students are back, and we have that lovely first-week-of-second-semester buzz where you have a combination of people who don't know what they're doing and are wondering around wide-eyed and slightly daunted and those who know exactly what they're in for and feel like they've got this whole "university thing" well in hand.

Plus, everyone seems to want answers to things. Sure, at this point most of the questions are "where can I find building DB42" and the like, but it still gives us something to answer. Librarians love to answer things.

The strange, unlikely joy of being busy...

Heading into exams, etc

Ah, the life of a librarian is not for the faint of heart.

There are periods where one is rushed off one's feet with various projects coming out of one's ears and questions coming thick and fast from students in the middle of assignments and faculty in the middle of their own projects...

And then there's the exam period, when our "home" suddenly turns into a gigantic study room and we are surrounded by people who don't want to talk to us, but still want us to be here.

It's boring.

Boring, I say! Sure, there are still the projects, but they're mostly gearing down as well, seeing as our main clientèle is going to be leaving town for a month or so. Students rarely come visit the university library during their intersemester vacation.

For the next six-to-eight weeks we deal with less than half the number of people who normally come through our doors. This, supposedly, frees us up to do other things (such as, complete the dreaded CMS conversion) - but the joy of being a reference librarian is the thrill of the chase. The answering of questions. The new and wonderful things you learn when trying to connect someone with the information they need.

During the week it's not so bad, but the weekend and evening shifts are the very doldrums. For some reason, this is when they decide to extend the library opening hours. After all, we have all of these eager little students cramming for their exams.

It's true, the library building does get used. The library resources also get used. It's just the librarians who don't. Our statistics look horrible - and libraries live and die by statistics.

Should you find yourself near an academic library during this period, please, come in and ask a question. Preferably a question we have to look up somewhere ("where are the toilets" type questions do not fill us with joy). You'll make some poor librarian feel useful and happy.

Print vs Digital?

Well, I was privileged to be part of a discussion this afternoon that involved one of Australia's leading feminist/education/academic theorists, dale spender (she insists on spelling her name in lowercase - probably an indication of how much she values the constraints of conventional written language), in which the topic up for grabs was the inherent obsolescence of print (and why everyone teaching students is being too stubborn to accept it and move on).

Her professed point of view was that print had no place in the future, and barely had a place in the present, and we should just embrace the wonder that is the digital age and accept whatever is created within it.

As an XY Cusper (born on the cusp between Generations X and Y), I've had to listen to this twaddle my entire life. Theorists keep saying digital literacy is more important than any other form of literacy, and most of my peers and successors have either bought into the theory or have been taught by people who have bought into it hook line and sinker. At the heart of the theory is a fundamental flaw:

Everything worth doing is digital, so we don't need print or anything to do with print any more.

There is this fundamental, basic concept at the core of the 'digital movement' that says "print is dead - linear thinking is dead. Let us speak of it no more."

To me, that's a bit like saying "we have elevators and escalators - you no longer need to climb stairs so stop doing it". For one thing, the stairs are still very much all around us regardless of how many buildings are now using elevators. For another thing, periodically, escalators and elevators have been known to stop working. Then the escalators mysteriously turn into stairs, and the elevators turn into pointless boxes taking up space in the building.

When such things happen, the ability to find and use stairs becomes handy.

This is where I sit on the whole 'print vs digital' debate: We need to be literate in both, in equal measure. We need to be able to create both comfortably and with some degree of skill. We can't just (dare I say it?) toss out the baby with the bathwater. Heck, in these drought stricken times we can't even afford to toss out the bathwater - not when it could be put to use somewhere else.

Sure, it's a great thing to be able to think and create in a non-linear fashion. It's also important to be able to think and create in a linear fashion. Sure, it's great to be able to jump from A to T without feeling bogged down by all the bits in between. It's just as important to be able to go right through the whole sequence from start to finish and be able to appreciate what effect that sequence has on the world around it. It's also good to be able to know where to find F without a computer just in case (heaven forbid!) you find yourself without one on occasion.

You see, my big beef with the 'digital age' is that our new tools are not infallible, and we need to have a Plan B that can work when the lights go out. You always have candles in the house in case the electricity fails. You should keep books and dictionaries on hand for the same reason.

I'm a big believer in not being deskilled or unskilled - especially if it involves basic things like being able to read a book or write a letter. However, too many people have bought into the idea that digital has done away with the need for print related skills. As a result, I'm surrounded by students my age and younger who simply cannot 'climb stairs'. More than that, they get highly offended if you imply it's something they should be able to do - that they're lacking a basic skill by not being able to do it. They have been actively deskilled (or allowed to remain unskilled) and they have been led to believe it is their God given right to remain so.

They try to tell me the future belongs to these people. I believe, in a world where the non-linear is being celebrated at the expense of the linear, the future belongs to whoever can read more than three paragraphs at a time without getting bored and loosing the plot. We'll see who's right.

I'm on a break

I've been on holidays for a week, and I will be for another week yet. I'll start updating when I come back.

You have to study for that?

I was talking to someone the other day about how I worked as a supply teacher while I was studying for my library qualifications.

For some reason he found it surprising that someone would have to study to be a librarian.

This from someone completing a Bachelor of Sports Science. I managed to refrain from asking him how long he had to study at a university level to throw a ball, but it was tempting.

Next time you feel compelled to think the person sitting at the reference desk just wandered off the street and got a job, you should keep in mind that most librarians have post-graduate qualifications. Not only do they have at least one degree in a different field of study (I have degrees in Education and English Literature), but they also have a Graduate Diploma, Masters or even a PhD in Information Management (or something similar).

And yet, in spite of the fact that we've spent about six years of our lives in some form of academic study and dedicated at least a year or two to learning how to find and organise information on a level you might never personally encounter, we are still more than happy to print out a copy of the street map and tell you how to get to the mall, or simply tell you where the toilets are located in the building.

Why? Because librarians are not only smart and well educated, we're also helpful.

That's why we do this job - we just love helping you find what you're looking for.

Forgive my tardiness

So much for my trying to keep the blogs updated once a week.

Maybe I should shoot for once a fortnight, that way if I managed to do it weekly it will be a bonus.

Half the problem is that I start writing an entry while I'm on the desk and I don't get to finish it, so it takes longer than I thought to publish something I started last week some time.

Must try harder...

By the way, an entry for the Information Literacy blog that was started on the 31st of March is finally posted. It was sitting there, finished, since last Thursday. I just needed to check over it, add lables and post.

The World's Most Boring Book Display

It happens all the time. I think of a scathingly brilliant idea for a book display, I sit down at the catalogue and dig up a great range of titles, I get hold of a trolley with which to carry my haul of great books...

But then I get there and find out that, thanks to our policy of removing dust-covers, the books are dead boring to look at. Either that, or books I think are really interesting are so old and well-used that the covers are practically falling apart. If the insides weren't worth keeping we would have thrown them out years ago.

Well, the other day I had three brilliant ideas in a row - and every single one of them had to be "re-thought" due to the fact that the covers weren't much to look at.

In despair I sat down with a colleague and tried to work out a way I could salvage any of my ideas... When the idea slowly dawned on me.

I had been talking to a someone the other day about turning one's weaknesses into strengths and then playing to one's strengths. Having boring or ugly book covers was my weakness - so I should turn it into my strength. Make it the point, rather than the problem.

Thus, we now have the world's most boring book display sitting proudly in the middle of our library. There's no theme, rhyme or reason to it. The only thing the books really have in common is that we wouldn't normally put them on display.

They cover subjects such as reptiles, the universe, puppet theatre, children's street games, scientific reasoning, classic novels... Most of them are really interesting once you pick them up and take a look at the insides.

Now all that remains to be seen is if anyone picks them up to look at the insides. Apart from the nice big A3 sign that says "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover", there isn't a lot of colour to attract attention.

I wonder if anyone will look at them at all...