Library Services

I made a few interesting connections with the first few pages in Chapter 1 of our text on library services. One of the two basic functions of a library media specialist (pg4) is instruction or guidance in the use of information sources. This reminded me of the discussions I had in EDUC461 where collaborative teaching with classroom teachers was promoted – not just to have schools keep TL’s hired but to fulfil the intent of the TL job of teaching students on how to quickly, safely (not just a web issue) and effectively find answers to questions and to acknowledge sources to avoid plagiarism. With collaborative teaching students immediately apply their skills to a classroom research project.

I also was interested by the term bibliographic instruction, partly because I have just spent a week in a French immersion classroom where we visited the “bibliotheque”. It made me flip to the dictionary chapter’s webliography (p64) and look up the source of the word. From Wikipedia I found Biblio is greek meaning literally “book and from Encarta “small book”. I realize something that attracts people to libraries in the love of words and their meanings. Maybe as a teaching tool we can resurrect the old game version of “dictionary” to make learning words fun. Or how about teach word art such as the Wordle.com website.

The third item I noted was that we are teaching lifelong learning skills (pg.5). This line resonated in many of the introductions I read by my fellow students in this course. How do we capture that “elixir” and provide it in some form to the students we will communicate with in our libraries and computer labs? This is the challenge of being a good teacher in any class or group.