Day 7 … already

I am a little sad because this morning I got excited about meeting the Aquisitions Librarian. Not that cataloguing rocks my world in any shape or form but I still haven’t done that bibliographic standards module yet. I keep putting it off because everyone I have spoken to says it is so difficult. I have bought the texts and got the readings but just haven’t signed up for it…
Today I am meeting Joyce from Aquisitions and she kindly asked if there was anything that I wanted to know. I mentioned RDA as I know we had to write an assignment about it. So very kindly she has sent me some links. She also mentioned a book that might help. Other materials I found include The Joint Steering Committe for RDA website, rdabrochureJanuary2010 , RDA objectives and Principles ,
Hopefully it might help me get a bit ahead of the game.
I am looking forward to the chat as I really know so little about this aspect of things.

Wow! Once again I am blown away by how much there is to do and how complex it is. 16 people work in the Aquisitions and Bibliographic Section. The average day sounds like lots of communicating and collaborating with departments and other library sections; checking book reviews, orders, payments and meetings with the other sections. Where possible they share purchasing with other institutions to decrease costs. (If only my organisation did this. We must all buy the award winners each year and many of us want the same subscriptions.) Bibliographic records are shared, rather than starting from scratch each time, whenever possible. this saves time and enables manpower to be utilised else where.

The amount of materials coming into the library is atonishing and they are processed on a priority basis. The INOPAC allows for users to request books that have not yet been fully processed and these are given first priority. The promise is that if a request for an ‘i’ material is made (in process), it will be with the user with 24 hours. This means that there are dedicated people who deal with this daily. Luckily the demand for this service is not too huge; usually no more than 10 per day. After that core course materials, new books and finally donations are processed. Obviously any of these could be prioritised due to a requestfrom a patron.

I felt that the main issue the section encounters is the materials donated. I have written a collection policy and put in the required paragraph on dealing with donataions however I do not deal with donations that run into the tens of thousands like they do here. The section is over run with donations many of which will be of no use to the library. Some of the donations must be kept because they are scholarly works or they may have been donated by someone of great importance. Unfortunately though much of it is not applicable to the setting and will not be wanted by the user.

Disposal is difficult. Some of the materials are donated to the local primary and kindergarten school but they can not be sent to a charity that will sell them. Sometimes they are sent to programs in China but I am unsure how they could possible dispose of the quantities I saw today. As this is my first time seeing anything like this I am unsure if this is normal.. if you have any experience I’d love to hear about it. Pictures to follow.

Media and Systems Services

So I spent the afternoon with Francis from Media and Systems services. (MSS) He was at pains to tell me he had only been in this role for 3 months and that actually the name of the service is historical and outdated. This area has recently been streamlined and now has limited functions. In other libraries this is now known as Electronic Services and Francis felt that this would happen soon when reorganisation happens.
One of the services offered is the maintence of the Edvideo. This is the legal recording of curent affairs, documentaries and educational programs shown on TV within HK. Once recorded these are then streamed online to enable researchers to access them. The work for this is shared between all the HKall memebers. 2 universities record a particluar program, the second in case of mishaps. The service also has some cataloguing to do in connection to this.
Another role is the up keep of the online resources… subcriptions, licences, e-books, e journals and databases. There is some cross over here between aquistitions and MSS due to the nature of journal subscriptions. Some are bought as an online package whilst others are purchased individually. Aquisitions deal with individual titles whilst Media deals with the packages. It sounds incredibly complex and the communication that needs to take place appeares to be time consuming. This is another area Francis felt needed to be streamlined. I was interested to learn that publishers now sell their journal packages direct to the universities. This did not use to happen 10/15 years ago. They were always sold through an aggregator such as EBSCO host or Jstor. Now institutions can get very good deals but obviously all of these need to be brokered which is time consuming.
There are also many issues with online materials and most have strictly binding contracts written by lawyers. These contracts are often difficult to interpet, making decisions as to whether a journal/ article can be loaned through an inter library loan or copied in a particluar format, hard to make.
HKIEd is about to begin some Patron Driven Acquisitions. This works by securing in bulk e-books from the vendor. The library only pays for the books that are utilised. If the book is not used it is not paid for. Howevere in order to do this a limit on spending has to be in place as if demand is too high then budget issues can occur.

There is an e first policy in place. If possible the e-books are bought in perpetutity. Some are subscription based in particular those text that date very quickly, such as those concerning computing and modern technology.

HKIEd had joined several consortiuums in order to ensure their students have a access to as many e-books as possible. They have joined with university libraries in HK, Taiwan and mainland China to give themselves more spending power and shared access. This has ensured access has increased by 20-30 000 items.

The Media department also deals with its own IR. ( Institutional Records.) As the call for open access has arisen, and questions concerning the use of public money to fund research that then gets printed in a profit making journal, IR has become common place in many institutions. Before a piece of research is published, when it is still in its print form, the institution from which the research developed is able to approach the publisher and request that they may ensure their students have access to the paper. Every piece of research needs to be checked with the publisher before the print version can be made available due to copyright issues that may arise. Publishers generally agree to this.
Collaboration between information sevice and media service is high. The information Service decide on the content ie workshops, library virtual tours, subject guidelines, but the Media service put it together. On top of all this they are also responsible for hardware such as computers and headphones.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/venessamiemis/4756760521/sizes/n/in/photostream/

What occured to me this afternoon is that the library is a much more complex place than I had anticipated. There needs to be very clear systems in place and communication needs to be efficient and effective if the user is going to get the best out of the service. Collaboration within the library and between different institutions needs to be high if the users are to be able to access wide range of appropriate resources effectively and efficiently. It made me question why we don’t do this as schools. Surely by creating consortiuums we would get more bang for our buck and increase our services to our students.

Day 6

Well it is only lunchtime but it has not been an especially busy day. I arrived and checked over the Proquest guide I had been working on. I found a few more edits I needed to make and I think it is all finished. Then I improved my PowerPoint for Wednesday and uploaded it to Slideshare. Take a look. http://www.slideshare.net/stephgilchrist/book-talks-16741762 Done…all work complete.

I have asked 3 times for more to  do but nothing is forthcoming. I went on a 20 minute library tour and other than that have been observing and doing a bit of school stuff. This afternoon I have a meeting with Media Services and Joey said she will sort something out for me. Let’s hope as I am happy to work.

Just met with Joey who talked me through some tentative plans for a virtual library tour. They are wrestling with whetehre they go video, 3 D or keep with the slide show. To be fair nothing can happen until the budget for a refit or reorganisation has been decided. What the conversation highlighted was that we have much in common. we are both constrained by budgets. We both have issues with keeping up with online materials and updating. We both want to provide the best for our students. We both educate our students about digital citizenship and the use of the online resources. Obviously there are economies of scale going on but basically we face the same issues. I hadn’t really thought that would be the case and we would have so much in common. Next stop Media Services.

Just a few snaps from around the library.

Day 4

Today started the same as yesterday… subject guides! I am hoping to get them finished today.
This afternoon I attended an Information Workshop on plagiarism and citations.  Issues are that students do not have to attend. Therefore many sign up but few actually attend. Attendance at these are voluntary unless lecturers make it part of their course.
The style of teaching was obviously very different to my primary school experiences but the PowerPoint and materials were very thorough and well put together.
An interesting experience.

Day 3

After knowing the hill I had to climb this morning I wasn’t so keen on arriving at the library. I knew that I would have to continue to spend time updating the subject guides for at least 4 to 5 hours…. YUCK! I realise that it is necessary but boy it is tedious.

After lunch things looked up. I met with Joey who is very enthusiastic and has some great ideas about teaching information literacy to her students. We shared lots of ideas and I realised that she is working on the very same things I am but at a different level. Tomorrow I get to see her in action.

At the library they run many different types of workshops. Some are library iniatated whilst others are course initiated. This means collaborating with the different faculties to ensure the staff are supported, and the students are getting the experiences they need in order to make progress. (Not much different from school really.)
There are also self initiated workshops whereby a group of 5 or more students can get together and request small group tutorials in areas they have concerns about. There are also ITC proficiency lessons which are required of all the 2012/2013 intake in order to demonstrate to employers that they have a certain level of ICT knowledge and skill.

Community groups, such as the Elders are also offered info lit classes in order to enable them to become digitally literate. The more I chat with people at this library the more I realise how different it is from the perception of the librarian as the check out chick that many people have. Most are behind the scenes people who work on creating a learning environment and information environment that makes it easier for the rest of us … unfortunately most people don’t seem to recognise it.

Not what the HKIEd librarians are like.

http://images.search.conduit.com/ImagePreview/?q=librarian&ctid=CT1059861&searchsource=4&start=0&pos=6

So I’ve been assigned a couple of task. I’m not sure how I’m going to get it all complete as i am still working on the Alerts and the Subject Guides but I’ll give it a go.

1. To organise a one hour workshop on how to oragnise a book talk.

2. To update the user guide for one of the databases, Proquest. (To be fair Joey has done most of this already and she has just left me bits to do at the end.

The last thing I discovered was Google scholars Alerts. The library here has incorporated Google Schoolr into their catalogue and provides links to the citations. Cool!

What I most appreciated about Joey giving up her time this afternoon was that she showed that she was aware that my head had given me two weeks off and that the children would not get my lessons for 2 weeks. because of this she really wanted to make sure I experienced and learned lots of new things. Great afternoon, thanks Joey!

And finally.

Well assignment 2 posted to EASTS and now uploaded to slideshare. Now I just need to finish the presentation, or polish it up a bit and away we go. I’m not sure what is happening on Monday, or Tuesday can’t remember at the moment, but I’m not going to stress.
My main concern was getting the notes down to 1500 words. The area was so big I’m afraid I’ve wasted words on stuff that I should have glossed over instead of leaving more words for the main part. I don’t know. Regardless I’ve learned lots about DC that I didn’t know before and about the positive aspects of online games. The readings have been great and I’d fully recommend them to any teachers thinking about using online games as a club or in their classroom. I’m now contemplating using QUEST ATLANTIS with my kids next term. I’ve also found some other online games that are worth exploring as they may be useful for school. The Educational Games research blog provides a good list.
So here is the presentation. Let me know what you think. Sorry I can’t post the notes as I have to save them for Judy until it’s all been marked. I certainly don’t want her to think I plagarised them!

Digital citizenship. Game on.

View more PowerPoint from Stephanie Gilchrist

Enjoy!

Games and learning

Reading this article by Oblinger has made me think further about education games and the gamification of learning and education. Games engage us and motivate. They have a powerful potential which could enable students to learn information, skills and change attitudes and ways of thinking.

They provide an opportunity to be involved in a  collaborative community in which older or more established players act as mentors for novices. The community share ideas, solve problems, socialize and work together to move things forward. Players are required to accept a set of values so they can integrate with other members of the community.

This is all very well but how does this link to digital citizenship. I looked very closely at the iste nets standards for students. They state that being able to use technology is no longer enough and that today’s learners must be able to use technology to analyze, learn and explore. Under 5b Digital Citizenship they state that students should display a positive attitude towards using technology that supports collaboration, learning and productivity. 5c Digital Citizenship states that learners should demonstrate a personal responsibility for life long learning and 5d exhibit leadership for digital citizenship. I would argue that using games does all of this. Games allow learners to take on leadership roles whilst collaborating with others in the virtual environment. Being engaged, as many gamers obviously are, illustrates that life long learning is more than just a label but a true possibility. And finally that the opportunities through games for collaboration and learning are endless. In fact most of the 6 standards would be able to be achieved through game play.

However it is here we need to be a little more circumspect. The key is how the teacher utilizes the game and for what learning outcome. Just like another tools thought needs to be given as to how it is going to blend with the curriculum and to what effect? Can it be blended successfully with the current educational tool kit?

Other question the gamification of education raises are;

1. What happens to internet addiction when study and learning are linked closely to games?

2.  Is the hardware up to the job? is it appropriately configured and available for extended hours? Is the right equipment available such as headphones and working mics?

3. Are all the other networking tools that gamers need available?  Networked communication systems are a must. (Chat, IM, e-mail?)

 Games are still in an early stage of evolution. Although they can be effective learning environments, not all games are effective nor are all games educational. Games are now being designed based on learning theory and research. Their effectiveness rests on the massively multiplayer immersive worlds they create, where learners “learn to be” and a social network surrounds the learner. The time has come for games to be reintegrated with education, ending a longstanding rift between work and play. Oblinger (2006)

Are we ready for this change or do we remain rooted in the smoggy industrial past? Is the recent interest and push for games based learning based on research? Is it the educational tool of choice or just a current fad? Further reading and learning required!

 

Machine Learning

A new culture of change.

A new book delivered today, A New Culture of Change; Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown
A very interesting read about learning and the invisible learning happening outside of schools and universities.
They argue that we need a new culture of learning in which we harness the power of the collective and our desire for play. They illustrate how imaginations can be empowered and learning become life long, and engaging, through the use of new technologies that enable us to connect and collaborate. They believe that if we are driven by a passion, use our connections and play, then we are able to extend our ability to think, innovate and discover.
They see inquiry as vastly important in this as it helps us to stockpile experiences. They encourage us to ask the ‘where’ questions rather than the ‘what’ stating that the questions are more important than the answers. Inquiry then becomes a tool for harnessing the passions of our learners and enables the stockpiling of tacit knowledge ( knowledge gained from experience) to be developed.
An easy read that raises lots of questions. I was quite interested in the arguments about the positive aspects of online games, in particular World of Warcraft. I agreed but wondered how I could harness this in my primary library and classes. It makes me consider whether I should look at games for assignment 1 as the Horizon report indicated that games were 2 to 3 years away from being adopted in the classroom. I’m not sure whether it fits under the digital citizenship umbrella but I can see how it would raise issues in this domain.
If you get a chance read it, it will engage you and make you think.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonmatt/