What does a Dream Library Look Like in the 21st Century?
Monica Watt has asked me to consider what an ideal or ‘dream’ library might look like in the 21st century. Well, I’m not a librarian, however after attending the Learning Technologies 2008 Conference two weeks ago, I have some ideas about what type of 21st century learning environments will create the setting for meaningful student engagement with any kind of learning process.
However, before we can answer Monica’s question, we need to ask more questions:
What is a library today?
A library today is quite different to what it might have been several years ago, as users needs have changed significantly.
What do library users need from their library?
If we dont know the answer to this question, then a library runs the risk of being unnecessary, redundant.
What do users need to do there?
Do they need to use the library as a resource centre? A skills workshop? A private space? A service provider? A help-desk? A classroom? A portal to global communities? An information hub? A social networking site? A learning community?
Most likely a library needs to be all of these things and more.
Essentially, a library should help facilitate information access and processing. Yet today, most information is accessed online using computer technology rather than via print, and the ways in which this information is accessed and shared is changing minute by minute! So, libraries need to be adaptable and flexible to remain or become relevant to existing and emerging users. I think a library needs to focus more on teaching users how to process information, and this means providing the skills needed to process information in a predominately Web 2.0 online environment. This may be require a paradigm shift for librarians as the focus moves from information itself, to information pedagogy.
The 21st century library should foster 21st century approaches to learning.
explains that networks and connectivity lie at the heart of all learning today. Watch this YouTube video :
to understand what learners today face in terms of information overload. Are we teaching students the life skills they need to be capable of filtering and processing all this information? How can we help them safely and purposefully negotiate the complex information networks and communities they encounter online? How can a library help them do this?
In their own time, our students use ICT to search, access and share information, predominately for the purpose of online social networking. This has accelerated to the point where it is almost out-of-control. Perhaps a dream library is a network of information that enables students to learn how to search for, access, share and use information wisely, ethically, intellectually, skilfully, and most importantly, in meaningful ways.
In his blog, Library Walls, David Bogardus
circles the same issue I am raising (also published in CSLA Newsletter). He asks:
“What is the ideal school library? How do we create a space that allows students to be constructive with the information and ideas stored there? How can creativity be archived for others to build upon? We need to go well beyond Dewey to access the answers.”
Bogardus, an American school librarian, reflects on how Gen Y students access and share information online, in much the same way as a gopher builds mounds: erratically and haphazardly, with play being the central focus. He refers to their use of MySpace.com to illustrate this point:
“I wonder if our students’ hunger for content and self-expression often lead them to adopt my gophers’ model. Students will invest days on their MySpace page if they feel it will have an impact on their dating life, but often overlook the connection between the pursuit of knowledge and the eventual lasting contributions they will be able to make to their future family and community. As librarians, we can help build bridges between the tunneling for information and personal success. Our best work may be realized when we work one-on-one with a student and connect the classroom content to this student’s own goals and aspirations”.
It seems easier to know what a dream library needs to do in the 21st century:
It needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to process information using the technologies they need and wish to use in their daily lives. The role of the library needs to be active, rather than passive - it needs to direct students to make good choices in the consumption and distribution of information. It needs to help students filter and process, to link authentic learning experiences with the technologies they play with and need for their life ahead of them.
Tony Wagner in his article The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It
lists 7 essential skills for 21st century survival:
1. Critical thinking & problem solving
2. Collaboration and leadership
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepeneurialism
5. Effective oral and written communication
6. Accessing and analysing information (I would like to edit this for our purposes: access, analyse, filter and process information)
7. Curiosity and imagination
A dream library should develop and implement pedagogies that help our students achieve these life skills. A dream school library in the 21st century needs to be more than what we have come to expect from a traditional library. It needs to be like a 21st century classroom: a dream classroom, that focuses less on delivering content and more on helping our students learn how to effectively learn with, and manage, information and technology.
Then what does the dream library need to look like to achieve this?
Wow! thats a tough one! That requires a few questions to be answered first. And then perhaps another post!
