Libraries Lead!
Libraries Lead! is a provocative podcast about all things information & library hosted by Beth Patin (Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies, Syracuse U), Dave Lankes (Professor, iSchool, U of Texas), and Mike Eisenberg (Dean/Professor Emeritus, iSchool, U of Washington). Information age opportunities and challenges affect every aspect of human existence. We wrestle with such topics as social justice, political unrest, mis- and dis-information, kids, family and adult living; education and learning; work, employment, training and jobs; recreation, entertainment, and play; disasters & emergency preparedness with a focus on libraries & information science, services, and systems. 4 segments in approx. 1 hour: WAZZUP, AI WATCH, MAIN TOPIC, and AWESOME LIBRARY THINGY. For Resources & References for All Episodes please go to: https://tinyurl.com/libleadresources
Libraries Lead!
Episode 3: EDUCATION CHALLENGED!
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March 3, 2021
75 Minutes
Dave Lankes & Mike Eisenberg
It pretty much happened overnight: schools are closed, kids are home, teaching and learning are online, parents are responsible for coordinating it all. While every aspect of life has been affected by the pandemic, no sector has been more quickly and more significantly by the pandemic than education – on all levels. The most direct impact is on students, parents, and teachers, but it really affects everyone.
In this episode, we try to get a handle on what’s going on and what it means—immediate, short-, and long-term. We do so by speaking with someone who has perspectives on the details but also the big picture, pre-K to 12 and beyond: Colet Bartow, Teaching and Learning Senior Manager, Montana Office of Public Instruction. Colet is an accomplished teacher, education & technology innovator, and advocate for libraries, information technology, curriculum improvement, and information literacy in learning and teaching. Listen in on this far-reaching discussion of the challenges and opportunities in our new normal world.
References & Resources
Wazzup?
Weber, Paul J.; Stengle, Jamie (March 26, 2021). "Texas death toll from February storm, outages surpasses 100".
2021 Texas power crisis. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis Accessed May 1, 2021.
Main Topic - Education
Montana Office of Public Instruction. http://opi.mt.gov/
The Big6 Approach to Information & Technology Literacy. https://thebig6.org/
Sullivan-Macdonald, Donna (Oct 02, 2015). “Teach More, Librarian Less, Say SLJ Leadership Summit Panelists,” School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=teach-more-librarian-less-becoming-essential-panel-at-the-slj-leadership-summit
Awesome Library Thingys
Fay, Brigham (Feb 10, 2021). “MIT Libraries develop innovative open access agreements with PLOS. All MIT authors can publish in PLOS journals without publishing fees,” MIT Libraries News & Events. https://libraries.mit.edu/news/libraries-develop/31742/
Shannon McClintock Miller: Innovation Director of Instructional Technology and Library Media at Van Meter Community School in Van Meter, Iowa. https://vanmeterlibraryvoice.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html
Burt, Chris. (November 17, 2020). “Librarians leading the way with innovation, support during COVID.” Shannon McClintock Miller shares how this empowered group of school leaders is making a difference with students and teachers, along with some of the tools they are using. https://districtadministration.com/librarians-lead-the-way-with-innovation-guidance-during-covid/
Future Ready Librarians. https://futureready.org/thenetwork/strands/future-ready-librarians/
Credits
Yoni Yemini from ACE Chicago Events
Hello, it's David Lykas here again with Mike Eisenberg for our Libraries Need the New Normal episode of our podcast. Uh coming to you with the support of the University of South Carolina's iSchool, uh Chicago Ace Productions, and um Publishers Weekly. And once again, our job here is to really have conversations, talk to interesting people, and really think about what libraries can do now and as they move out into a new normal post-COVID, what's going on. How's it going, Mike?
SPEAKER_01It's going well, Dave. And uh just to remind everybody that this podcast came about because um in this the second decade of the 20th century, uh excuse me, the 21st century, there's a new normal. And uh it's also been uh uh challenging of biblical proportions, and here in the year 2021, it doesn't seem to be letting up. Um and there are some sea-changing, life-altering, groundbreaking, transformative, pivotal, radical change things happening, and libraries and librarians have a major role to play as society overall comes to grips with this. So we're gonna talk about that in the new normal. And I had started to talk with my friend Dave about this, and we both kind of looked at each other, at least uh over the phone, and said, why don't we do this as a podcast? So we are. So some of the topics we're gonna talk about in terms of the new normal are the um the pandemic, COVID, social justice, miss and disinformation, uh what it's like to teach and to learn in a virtual environment, work, virtual work, uh, disaster and emergency preparedness, search, and the great Google, and has Google fulfilling its uh uh role and responsibilities or not, as well as other social media companies and online and virtual life in general. Uh and but the focus is not just to talk about those new normal things, but also to talk about the nature and scope and the role of libraries and librarians in this, library functions and services and systems. So tonight we are very lucky that uh this episode's topic, which is education, libraries, and the new normal, that we have a special guest, uh Cole Bartow, who is Teaching and Learning Senior Manager for the state of Montana, the Office of Public Instruction. We recorded this earlier, so we know already that Kohlay was an amazing interview with a lot of uh tremendous useful information and uh some key issues, and we know that you will enjoy it. Uh and uh we will come back, Dave and I, and talk about those things uh in a later episode, probably the next episode, actually. Uh we'll come back and debrief each other on that. Uh uh I want to just review quickly our podcast structure and then get right to it. Uh we're doing the intros right now, that's the first part, and then we switch to what's up. What's up with Dave? What's up with me? How do we view things that are going on in the world? And then we get to the main topic. And again, tonight that will be our interview with Cole. And then we will uh conclude with something we call the awesome library thingy uh section of the podcast, and each of us have something related to the awesome library thinging, and then we just close it up. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Dave to see if I left anything out or if he wants to add anything to it.
SPEAKER_05That sounds great, as always. Just two old guys yelling at each other over microphones. It's all good. So, what's up with you this week, Mike?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, Dave, uh my first what's up in in episode one focused on the minor January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, something that's uh you know faded quickly from the public view, not really. And my second was on the scheduling of COVID vaccinations, which I was so upset about and still am in a lot of ways. Uh and the third one, there's another crisis situation that faced us, and it faced us just in the last few days. It's called weather and killer storms. In the past three days, according to CNN, nearly 154 million people in the United States were under some form of weather alert because of severe cold and wind chill, and about 68 million people were under severe wind chill warnings, and something uh on the neighborhood of 4.2 million people alone reported power outages in Texas, where they started with rolling blackouts. And, you know, in spite of what the governor of Texas might say, this is not in a once-in-a-century or once-in-a-decade occurrence. It's really becoming routine. Uh severe weather is part of the new normal. So, what I've been thinking about and what's up is what's the role of libraries and librarians in this? How can we librarians and libraries really lead and provide essential services and resources across communities, across um higher education, uh K-12 education, in business, uh, and in society in general. And uh I assume that's something that we will talk about in a future episode, hopefully one of our soon. But that's what's up for me, and it's really cold where I am right now. So that's what's up with me. How about you, Dave?
SPEAKER_05Oh, I was just wondering if you're gonna start advocating that librarians should either become weather people or we should start shoveling services. But um and actually, did you uh that's right, of the of the Texas mayor who resigned after sending a social media post about how people needed to get off their butts and start slap looking for handouts, like and I'm not making this up, water and electricity and heat because of the you know, socialism. We need civics lessons. We really need more civics lessons.
SPEAKER_01So uh what's up with me? That's another thing that we have to address, uh, address in our society, but that's that'll be down the road. Yeah, so what's up with you? What's up with me?
SPEAKER_05Um, so I've actually uh after the after I published the that or published weekly put out the piece about uh what you know libraries need to do and and helping people after the insurrection, I had uh one email follow-up, and it was a very uh nice person who sort of said, You're not really saying that libraries shouldn't be neutral, are you? You're really not advocating for censorship, are you? Um and it it uh it was one of those things that you sort of take a deep breath. And it actually so now we're we're on like our fifth email back and forth, and it's turned into I don't know, we might be at each other's retirement parties because it it's a it would me a beautiful example of people starting pretty far away, but both willing to listen as well as speak and have the conversation. And so uh I that's in my mind because I'm also in the midst of planning uh a series of of symposia, of conferences here in the summer, more more coming soon. But one of the topics is on post-neutrality librarianship. And in discussing with potential sponsors uh and supporters, I've had a couple of people push back and say, well, you know, we're a library, I don't think we can support a topic on post-neutrality librarianship, because of course we're supposed to be neutral. And um and so, and I think this is where I give my my faculty a lot of credit because uh the wheeler and dealer in me starts going, all right, well, well really we're having a conversation on neutrality, and we want both pictures of this. And my faculty, uh uh Vanessa Kitze in particular, who's who's on the faculty, brilliant. I said, Well, what about you know, sort of shifting the topic? She goes, No. She goes, No. This is this is we're past that. We're done. That's the topic. And and Frank, yeah, that's the topic. And so uh so that that's been it's it's it's taking the big highfalutin words and turning it into the on-the-ground reality with other libraries, and once again, with this one individual um who clearly, you know, and the email started with Trump has every right to dispute the election, and ended with, you know, I've learned a lot, and you know, clearly we have you know thinking differently about libraries and and and me thinking about you know how you have these conversations. And so it was a very it was a positive experience amongst it. So uh in the midst of you dealing with global weather, I'm dealing with emails, so it's all good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, um that's that's interesting, and I'll be interesting to listen to that or to uh to to find out more about it. I did something not exactly similar, but related to bringing people together. I happen to uh subscribe online to the Schenectady uh Daily Gazette newspaper, and I love reading uh opinion pieces and then letters to the editor and then comments by people on that. But they the letters, the comments in the Schenectady Gazette are dominated by like two or three individuals on either side of the spectrum. So I wrote a letter that said, you know, can we can we just yeah, we get it. You guys have the truth, you have the truth, I have the truth, and everybody else are evil enemies, and they don't deserve et cetera, et cetera. But maybe we could start by just finding some common ground, like we all wish the best for our families, and you know watching a sunset is uh awe-inspiring and things. So they actually published the article, uh, but people thought that I was Pollyanna-ish and naive, which is not a couple of adjectives that's usually um referred to me. So anyway. All right. Well, um I I will but I think you're right there. Can can libraries be both uh neutral and also to advocate for uh against rather miss and disinformation? That's interesting topic, Dave. All right, but but no. But no, but no. All right, uh, so we're gonna take a very short break, and when we come back, you will hear our complete interview with Cole Bartow from the state of Montana. So, Yanni, take us out with the music, and here we go. Our first guest to Libraries Lead in the New Normal podcast, and that is Cole Bartow, who is the Teaching and Learning Senior Manager. She keeps adding things to her title in the Montana Office of Public Instruction. And I met Cole a number of years ago. Uh, we worked on an information literacy project together in Montana, and she has an amazing amount of experience. She's also been very involved with national organizations in the information field, in the library field, and the technology field. So welcome, Cole. That is our my co-host, uh Dave Lankis. Dave, wave for us. This is me waving. And I'll wave too, Mike. That's right. This is a podcast. Thanks, Cole. Um, so let's just start out by uh I asking you to kind of introduce yourself pretty much uh in terms of your current position of work, but also how did you get here and how did you get to this description? And um, full disclosure for the audience that you and I have become very, very close friends, uh also families over the years. So uh what are you doing lately?
SPEAKER_00Well, Mike, thank you so much for asking, and I'm so honored to be a first guest on this podcast. I'm I'm excited to share a little bit and just have uh a great conversation tonight. Um so I'm Colet from Montana. I happen to work at the Montana Office of Public Instruction. Um I have a title that is inclusive of teaching and learning at our department. Um, and I'm really proud because that group includes a diverse group of um people in assessment and standards, instruction, professional development, as well as career and technical education. Um that family of mine grew as of this last year, and so it's been incredible to weave together these um different units and their work and to really see commonality in um in direction about how we help all students succeed and to be able to make the choices that they want that are going to lead them to success in their lives. So I work at the State Department in Montana, and so um I've done that for about 14 years. I was originally hired as the school library specialist, and and that's where Mike, you and I met was um when I first started to work at the OPI, we had a project to update our school library standards. And so it was exciting to be able to connect with the professional, the standard setter, as it were, um in the field, and to really bring the big six in particular into our state standards for school libraries. And then prior to that, I'll say I was a school librarian, a teacher librarian, an English teacher in a rural district in southwest Montana. And um part of the experience that I had there as a second-year teacher was to bring to life this idea that we would have a combined school and community library. And so in those very early days of my teaching career, um our community um needed to have a new library, but it also needed to replace an 80-plus-year-old high school building that um was, you know, I uh my my example was that I went away for a Christmas break. And um over the Christmas break, a piece of the ceiling fell onto our circulation desk in that library. And so, you know, there was great evidence that it's time to move on from this beloved old building. And the selling point to the community was um that we were going to be able to build a new facility that combined the services of the community library um with the school. And um that idea about access to public resources and and the the um not just books, but the community that's built through the library was really exciting. And it was the selling point to get a bond passed and and build this new facility. And now, 22 years later, that school and community library is is, I think, a shining gem in the um like the Montana public library community as well as school libraries because of that real connection to the community. Um, I I could go on for a little bit longer. I'm I'm a Missoula, uh Montana native, born and raised. My um grandparents and great-grandparents came to Montana um around the turn of the century, drawn by the natural beauty and splendor, but also mining. Um, and oddly enough, cigar making. And um perhaps the um, yeah, oh, my great-grandfather, who is from um Wisconsin originally, but uh had a lot of uh life um experience in Chicago, came to Montana and his first business in the state was as a cigar maker. Um so I come from kind of a line of people who have always had an interest in serving. And um, whether that like in the case of my great-grandfather, was um, you know, serving the needs of the cultured gentleman who needed a great cigar, or um, you know, my my father, who was an educator also, um I, you know, though these are the people that inspired me. And and they always would start a conversation or an interaction with asking a question. You know, what did we learn? Uh, what do you want to know? Um, and how are we going to help other people know what we've learned together? And so I have to say that was a real inspiration to go into a teaching career um and to be thinking about how do we how do we empower people to ask questions that lead them to amazing places.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I didn't know a lot of that. My great grand my grandfather ran a cigar shop at first before he got into TV radio uh in Brooklyn, New York, which I'm wearing Brooklyn for the for the uh represent. Represent. So I and I want to I I didn't also know about the Combined School uh Community Library, which I do want to talk about and we will get to. But first, just so that people who are listening may not know that much about Montana, except that you know Yellowstone's out there and it's a big place. And maybe you could just give us a quick overview, because it's a very, very interesting and independent uh and varied uh place physically, politically, um, in terms of uh socially and a lot of different ways. So maybe you can give us the uh the quick precey on um Montana.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So Montana became a state in 1889. Um and I I'll I'll I'll keep the history lesson short and kind of cut to the chase. Um but you know, before 1889 with statehood, Montana um was a place that was shaped and inhabited by its indigenous people. And um as we move forward in time and as people came to the West and began to take advantage of the land and the landscape, um, the mining and natural resources that really drew people to the state. Um I think uh one of the threads that has has continued to this present time is that even in our state constitution, there is a clause about attending to the health of its citizens, um, which I think is really unique, especially in a state where uh extraction industries really um the state, took the wealth, copper, gold, silver, coal, um, those things, and and really left devastation behind. Um, our when our constitution was refreshed in 1972, that health clause was put in, as well as a very specific expectation that all of our citizens need to know and understand about the unique native heritage of our state. And so Indian education for all is um how we uh um work with that idea in education, and we have this really big responsibility to make sure that the cultural and historical context of our Native peoples is included as a perspective throughout our education system. So when when um when Montana's approximately 145,000 K-12 students, um, that's the whole state has 145,000 K-12 students, um, when they learn in our public schools, uh curriculum, instruction, the resources that our state provides, um has a real grounding in the the past and present and the future of its indigenous people. So that that's a really unique characteristic, I think, is that that Indian education for all component that we live and breathe. Um the other thing, too, Montana, huge state, fourth largest state in the Union, um, but and we have just over a million residents in our state. Now, with COVID and that sort of thing, there's been a kind of an influx. I notice a lot of out-of-state license plates in the community that I live in, um, and you certainly can't. buy a house in Helena, Montana right now because all of those are just getting snatched up as soon as they're available or on the market. But that being said, you know, there's there's um potential for more representation in Congress if the census works out in our favor. But for that, just over a million residents of the state, the like many other states, a great part of the the state's budget is dedicated to education. And you know the the idea um you know that that uh drives how schools are funded is is still based in what we can get from property taxes, natural resources, and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_05So we big state lots and lots of of beauty to take in and to to enjoy um but uh as we move further into the 21st century I think there's some some real issues that that we're facing in um as we're phasing out that reliance on extraction industries um and then thinking about how are we getting it going to continue to fund the public services schools and libraries that are have have been so critical to responding to the the challenges that certainly that COVID have has presented in terms of access to education access to the public services that that keep people healthy and safe so um it it's it's a unique background um and always rooted in the land um and and and the people that inhabit it so um yeah well let me ask one I'm sorry just really quickly how the schools organized um around the state um so I'm in South Carolina which has also a large rural population not quite in the Montana scale but you know we have county based systems and um you know there they're you know as you get into urban centers you get you know a few more school districts and then you get these countywide school districts I'm just curious how how they're organized.
SPEAKER_00So um there are uh we have districts um and in some cases a district might incorporate a whole county um in some cases you might have multiple districts in the county where you see the population centers let's say in Billings which is the largest city and they have about 26,000 K-12 students they they also they have a large central district but then there are elementary feeder districts where the students are uh are K-8 and then they would transfer into the larger central district for for high school but um let's see here you know there are 439 elementary schools in the state of Montana and they range in size from you know up to five to eight hundred down to our very smallest schools which are one room schoolhouses that may have in any given year just a handful of students three one year in three different grade levels or and maybe the next year you know a kindergartner comes up and we've got a family of with four and you know five different grade levels there are about 90 of those very small schools um some of which are an entire district in and of themselves or or um part of a county as well so there's a big variety that we have seven big districts which don't really classify as urban you know according to the Department of Education they're um uh urban adjacent I think um and then just uh to kind of have a context for this I I believe it's um you know 50% of the students in our state um go to uh you know fewer than um go to these seven big schools and then the other students go to all of the other smaller size schools across the state uh thank you callet could you um can we jump into the the the main topic that uh that is the focus of our podcast which is the new normal and stuff so uh Montana is is unique but not solely unique there's uh other states like that Alaska Wyoming even parts of New Mexico uh and uh the Dakotas and and what have you but you know what's going on COVID wise um and also uh in terms of being in the 21st century it's the the year 2021 we're the second decade how has that affected Montana and if you could do all that in 30 no it take as much time oh yeah yeah no absolutely uh I can sum it up in access and opportunity COVID has shown a light on those gaps in access and the gaps in opportunity um to meet students at the point where where um support is needed whether that's education directly or whether we're talking about health and safety um what we see as a result of COVID specific to education is this shining light on these horrendous gaps in access and opportunity that we've been struggling with for years. And honestly you know we've had millions of dollars put toward this idea that we need to have better equity in access to education um but but what we know now is even more in a more crystallized way um what those gaps are and and I think and and I I wanted to make sure that that we understand these thoughts are my own and they don't necessarily represent the the um agenda or philosophy of the employer that I work for but that being said just from my personal experience with having both of my children finish out a school year making literally you know one day in the classroom then the next day in fact my my younger child um in his senior year of high school never went back into a classroom for his his senior to complete his senior high year in high school and what I observe from from him in particular is this wide range in the um the preparedness of the educators in his school to be able to deliver instruction in a way that was um particularly meaningful consistent and again back to these two words that that I just come back to accessible and that actually gave him the opportunity to engage in meaningful work to demonstrate what he was learning in that and so um so you know that that being said I I think what we've also learned after um many months and and the kind of the variation that schools have had in terms of um having some kids in buildings in seats completely traditional model for a certain amount of time um and then also you know meaning needing to be able to flex to a hybrid model where they split schedules some kids are in buildings and they you know flip-flop days and and that sort of thing to um especially in in native communities where because of the infection rate and the and the illness that you know occurred in these communities tribal governments just completely shut down the communities and and we have some schools that have been completely remote in these very remote parts of the state where students have not been in a classroom since March of last year. So as we at least have seen kind of the the different models that schools are are working in the questions bubble up and the and the concern bubbles up around um how do we know that our kids are safe because there are some kids that even with a hybrid model or the opportunity to come back into a building full time they haven't heard from kids haven't heard from families and so that that real concern about health and safety is has been something that has really weighed on on a lot of folks um and and along with that again kind of reflecting back on um how prepared were schools at the point where schools were shut down to access a robust and and mature digital ecosystem that could actually support instruction at a high level but also allowed teachers to have um and and schools to have that assurance of the safety and health of the pupils in their schools and and I think that's that's um we can talk more about that but um it's it's it's something that um as as somebody who started uh their teaching career in um well I'll just call it out uh I I'm in my 27th year in education and you know back in the day when when the web was a new thing and we were I you know huddled around you know the the library with the ceiling that fell in so huddling around a single um you know monochrome terminal with a dial up connection and there was this thing called like oh what was oh gosh Netscape and we're gonna try to search for some things like you know beginning from even that moment there's this desire to leverage the power of technology to support learning to support the connection between people and we've you know 27 years ago um could begin to see uh the possibilities now we I think we have all of the the resources we have the the capability of um building out robust digital learning ecosystems but that is unevenly available or accessible to all students and even all schools for a variety of reasons um but but hopefully again with that spotlight that COVID has put on these these horrible gaps in access I I'm hoping that you know whether it's federal dollars that are being flowed through to schools and districts that they're able to more clearly see the priorities that they need to spend money on infrastructure on whether it's building out their fiber connections so that they have adequate broadband in the schools, making sure that they have the even playing field of devices for all students and even probably just as importantly that teachers are prepared through professional development and with the technology that they need to successfully deliver instruction in in this this environment I that's what my hope is and for those who can order computers and get them you know in a timely fashion that's been an exciting thing to see one-to-one computing was I don't know kind of controversial for a long time should we do this should we not do this why should we do it if if people are saying we should do it and and now if if every student is to be afforded access equitable access to a high quality education um that's a gap we have to close and that's about opportunity it's not about the learning itself necessarily are we learning the math are we learning the science it's about can I even engage in a way that um that is with as few barriers as possible.
SPEAKER_01Well that's that's great stuff. We're gonna take a short break to let you catch your breath and and uh so when we come back I'm gonna ask Dave I'm sure he's uh chomping at the bit with a bunch of questions so we're just gonna take about uh uh half a minute and then we'll come back and really try to dive into um is this like a short term thing and then we'll go back to the old way or are there some fundamental things that are really shifting because of this. So Yanni if you'll uh give us a little break music we will count off 30 seconds okay thank you and uh this is Mike Isenberg again with Dave Lankis and we are with Cole Bartow from Montana talking about um she particularly brought up the the questions of the gaps in access and opportunity that COVID has I like the term uh shined a spotlight on so uh Dave do you want to uh jump in well uh yeah I have a few a few questions one of them is uh so what's the state of school librarians uh teacher librarians in the state uh are they are are do they exist are they sort of in the schools uh yeah you know Montana has been really unique in um I wouldn't necessarily say that the word is support but in Montana our basic system of quality education includes statute that says that every school must have a school library that meets the minimum standards of accreditation.
SPEAKER_00Our standards of accreditation have two components one is a a staffing requirement that for X number of students there will be X number of FTE school librarian to who is uh licensed and endorsed to to serve that role and to deliver that program. Those that statute those rules have not changed and so schools need to have a library and they need to have a library program and they need to have a licensed and endorsed teacher librarian. That being said for for a number of years and and and honestly as long almost as long as I have been in the education field sometimes the vacancies are hard to fill. And so we do have some a few schools and I want to say of the 400 or so elementaries and and you know other high schools in that there might be a dozen roles or or positions that might be filled with someone who is working towards licensure and endorsement as a teacher librarian. But really because that's part of our definition of a quality education program, the numbers are pretty steady and in in terms of the health of school librarians and programs we're in a pretty good place that way.
SPEAKER_01I'm wondering then Oh go ahead Mike I was just going to say would you say that the other faculty and teaching staff and administrators in the school know about and value their teacher librarians to say that kind of depends on the librarian and the the role that they're able to play the connections that they're able to to make the relationships that they build and how well they're able to tell their story of what the library and what the teacher librarian can do to support the the school program as a whole.
SPEAKER_00So I think for a lot of I would say medium to larger districts because they have sufficient staffing they they sometimes have and more often than the small schools certainly have support staff who can do some of the the the parts of the managing the library space you know the checking out of the books the shelving and those sorts of things I think that's where we really see teacher librarians flourishing in that role as a teacher leader and an instructional partner within a school. And again those folks who are able to effectively tell their story and to have that meaningful engagement with curriculum planning with promotion or whatever it is are really really doing a fine job. But we we know that that's not uh an even or or um a necessarily the the common experience in all schools especially depending on their size.
SPEAKER_05Yeah I'm wondering because I was having a conversation with Sue Kowalski who's a school librarian um in uh central New York and she was talking actually about one of the impacts is they had a lot of librarians who are who were you know we were all sort of stunned and trying to figure out what happened after last March. And there were a lot of librarians that sort of quickly got on their feet and said okay things like checking in with with students things like providing resources things like supporting and even doing instructional design work um for some of the classroom teachers to make that transition. But the one thing that that struck me when in having this conversation I'm just curious if you've experienced something like that was that Zoom education, this idea of hybrid and being online it's such a sort of cognitive load for students, right? Just being having to be online, having to get used to the that modality and having to sort of work around as teachers are working around things sort of sucked a lot of oxygen out of the educational process. In other words it suddenly became so focused around what could be done in that classroom that the school library program that students used to be really active in participant and where the school library would be a place of helping them expand inquiry based instruction beyond what was in the curriculum and all of that suddenly became really hard to do because the students just were tired. We were just you know so so you know dealing with the new mode. I'm just curious if you run across things like that as and and teachers may experience that as well in the classroom.
SPEAKER_00Oh absolutely um there's a couple things that you said that that um kind of sparked my attention when we talk about about the library being kind of a place-based learning um environment uh and I I I think that's where um if learning is only happening um with the teacher librarian in the library I think it it was incredibly difficult or even impossible to then make that shift in how do I fit into how do I fit my library lesson to this chaos that's going on with a classroom teacher who is trying to do math and ELA instruction and we've got you know the you're on mute your cameras you know not on or you've got naked grandpa going across the back of the of the Zoom room but like how do you how do you meaningfully walk in to that place and and have library instruction that um isn't anything more than in some cases disruptive to that already chaotic scenario. So and I know uh for for a couple of my you know close friends who are elementary librarians um just in visiting with them very early on in in the pandemic they were real trying to find their way how could they be of most help and and service and and I have to give a lot of credit to to one of my very good friends who realized that she needed to not get in the way of the teachers getting oriented to this new online teaching environment she needed to get books in the hands of kids. She needed to put together packets of materials and resources that could then be picked up by families in the you know the bus drive through or whatever. And so she she did dedicated a lot of time and most of her like you know book fair money to putting together sets of books and things that could be delivered to kids And so they would at least have something to read. And she worked a lot to try to match what resources she had and pick stuff for individual kids that they that she felt that they could really benefit from. So I think it's that on your feet thinking and looking and recognizing where the potential greatest need might be in supporting kids, that really found, especially for her, that way forward. She could do her library stuff, and that library stuff that she needed to do was to get books in the hands of kids. And, you know, on top of the parents who are trying to work at the same time as their kids are needing help and support in the in the Zoom classroom, it was really welcome in those families and recognized that the librarian was thinking about them and wanted to make sure that they had those those books in their hands.
SPEAKER_01Do you know any of those?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Finish your thought. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, you go.
SPEAKER_01I jumped in. Well, I was gonna ask if you knew any librarians or who became like the Zoom expert in their school that was able to help the classroom teachers uh uh from uh an open resource or information perspective because they might have actually had the knowledge and skills that everybody can benefit from.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um yes, and that existed in those schools that had been building their digital ecosystem with intention and and were already, you know, um without COVID recognizing that um there are students who need to learn in different ways in different environments. And um, when schools had in had invested in whether it's databases or um even the learning management systems, the video, you know, content services, that sort of thing, and and having um that be part of the responsibility of the school library and the teacher librarian. I definitely saw that, especially with some of our larger school districts who have been kind of working towards closing that that access gap to technology and to digital resources. But but again, um you know that the the COVID closures shine a light on where even with some of the best planning that happened and the on the you know many thousands of dollars that were invested in digital resources, um it showed up um these these gaps where I you know to to kind of jump into something that I'm other also really, really passionate about is interoperability of systems. How do we make that seamless, connected digital ecosystem so that again, there are no barriers to the teacher accessing what they need to teach and the student accessing what they need to access. And so that means that databases and those learning management systems and all of the content that goes in those things, those things have to talk to each other in order to create that ecosystem. So I think that's something I see going forward. Schools realize now some of the places where they're planning and best in of intentions to adopt digital resources, to adopt digital tools, um, need to be further connected so that if if um uh we get to a place where in-person instruction is more the norm, um that if the switch gets turned and and the pandemic raises its head again and and we're forced to go back into fully digital environments, that we're actually prepared to do that.
SPEAKER_01Um, I think it'll be interesting. Preparedness in terms of, but that whole interoperability and something, uh you know, the name of this podcast is Libraries Lead in the New Normal. So that's one area perhaps that libraries of all kinds in communities and schools maybe it's something we should be focusing on. And if our librarians don't have those skills and knowledge, that we can help them to get that so they can push for that and be the go-to person in their environment, because it sounds like that's pretty crucial.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I think absolutely. And and I think I think about um you know who really started, at least from my perspective, the idea that you could have shareable content. Well, libraries are the owners of the are the creators of the drivers of that. Um, you know, and and definitely more so in in public and academic library space. But um that same sort of uh of approach to taking down barriers to barriers to access to high quality content can really serve libraries and librarians well as they're looking at a digital ecosystem more um more broadly. It's not just about databases that we traditionally serve up through our our um library information system. How does that library information system then become an integral, integrated part of the schools or the community's whole digital ecosystem? So so again, um it's not another login, it's not something separate, it's just uh you know, seamlessly integrated so that you have what you need at the point that you need it.
SPEAKER_05But so let me pick on that point, because we're now our three podcasts into this, and I feel completely at liberty to uh accuse my colleague Mike Eisenberg of positions he doesn't necessarily subscribe to, but makes my point for me anyway. Um he talks about the idea, for example, of the idea of an information infrastructure, and he's also convinced that after COVID, no one's going to live near anyone else and go back to an office ever again. So I think that's that's a pretty fair representation of his views. Uh but no, the reason I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01I live in Seattle, remember that's that's Seattle where there's a lot of real estate downtown now.
SPEAKER_05Not yeah, yeah, because he and he's also not in Seattle as we speak, which I guess proves his point. Anyway, um but when you talk about this seamless, the one I want to be, I want to be I want to ask a very leading question because what it could quickly turn into is if you define the library as the resources, as the databases, if you're you define even the librarians as the one that are integrating and connecting them together, it quickly becomes a matter of okay, we've got the resources connected in, we've got the learning management system online, we've got the the ebooks ready to lend. Thank you for your participation. Um and and clearly when we talk about whether we use the term teacher librarian or librarian educator or school librarian, you know, we know that from the data and research and studies that that it's certified school librarians running in programs where they have a curriculum of information literacy that makes a difference, not just the stuff and the resources. I'm thinking I'm wondering though, as we talk about this, um you know, in in March of last year, uh and in April of last year, it was kind of like, all right, come on, come on, come on, come on, let's just all right, let's go back. Um, or we can't wait to get back. Or once we get back, it's fine. And then it sort of turned into, oh my God, we're gonna have to do this. And we have, as you pointed out, your with with your with your child, we have seniors graduating that aren't gonna be in a classroom ever again, and are they ready to go to college? And same could be said for eighth graders going, you know, freshman year, etc. Um and so now we better get this instruction right. And and I really loved in the early part of the discussion where you're talking about it's not just the instruction, right? It's also the health and safety. It is the monitoring, it is the fact that we need to support, you know, one of the things we quickly learned is that these kids are home and they can be hungry. And because, you know, we built an infrastructure to handle you know poverty, to handle um a lot of social ills through our schools, and we built them as places to do that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05But that's a long way to go for the idea of uh do you see a changing role for school librarians? Is it they're going to be these um, you know, the information literacy instructors, and they're going to be the you know, sort of largest, most diverse classroom in the in the school because they cover all the students. Is it that but online? Or is there a different role? Uh one suggestion, for example, where librarians you know, when technology was first coming to school, school librarians stepped up to to really become a way of normalizing technology because they took a they sort of made eased eased a lot of the instructional staff into the use of that technology. Is this a matter where we need librarians to step up to become the this is how you teach and do instruction online? I mean a little bit more instructional development. Is there another role that you see librarians playing in this new normal?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I do, and uh it goes back to conversations, um presentations, uh discussions, arguments from years past, um, where where I and I can't remember if it was Mike said this. We were at a School Library Journal Summit uh a couple of years ago in in Seattle, and what we said was you need to teach more and librarian less. And so, in in terms of a new role for school librarians and teacher librarians, um to agree that um we need to leverage the incredible expert, the teaching expertise of most teacher librarians who are certified, licensed, endorsed, appropriately trained, um to have an impact and to support the the teachers in their buildings who um who just need that instructional coach that to help them navigate some of the technology and content, but also the pedagogy challenges that they have. So I really, you know, my hope in has been always that uh school librarians, teacher librarians, whatever we want to call them, um see themselves as the instructional or professional development leaders within their schools, because when we um and I'm always captivated and and somehow I always return to Benjamin Bloom's Two Sigma problem. If we have the ability to support highly effective instruction that occurs between one person and one, or you know, one teacher and one student, um, I think the same sort of model, once we add the number of students or then add the number of teachers, um technology can help to uh to to mediate or to increase the effectiveness of that person. In almost any school, um, especially in Montana, we're lucky there's a what there is one teacher librarian. So, how do we multiply the impact, the effect, the expertise of that person? Well, it's by helping them to be able to connect with other teachers. So then those teachers are able to effectively or or you know learn something, have something just in time that's going to improve the outcome for the students in that classroom. Um and and so you know, I hope to see that as a continuing change in how teacher librarians see themselves, see themselves as instructional leaders, see themselves as someone who can have their best impact or their most lasting impact in their school when they're helping their fellow teachers, their school administrators to make sure that every kid has the best instruction possible and the access to the resources that are going to enable that.
SPEAKER_05Well, and the network that's on the uh Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Dave. No, you go. Just really quickly, the network. The network that you're talking about is amplifying that individual, not just to connect to the teachers in the classroom, but I'm thinking where we began this conversation when you're talking about building a public library and then school library together, which is to also then leverage it for after they're done in the building and their home and they're you know gonna go for the weekends and the summers, and then even the college libraries, so that you know when they when your seniors become our freshmen. And so it's about you know, maybe what the one of the positives we can take out of this uh forced digital you know uh infrastructure build-out, um connecting through electronics, is the idea of really having people networks go with them and building those stronger connections.
SPEAKER_01You went exactly where I wanted to go, Dave, uh, in terms of the what Coley had mentioned about the combined school and community, uh and yes, expanding it to the higher education, um, and because that's a way to leverage, and so maybe that's part of libraries leading in the new normal, is a whole lot more collaboration among librarians and different types of facilities in order to deliver the baseline resources and for preparedness, because it may not be coronavirus next time, it could be forest fires or it could be floods or earthquakes or some other climate thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I one of the things that that I was thinking about before we were talking is you know um public libraries have have become um service providers, for lack of a better term. They provide services that go above and beyond certainly the traditional role of the the you know the the warehouse of the book or the archive of the community's history. Um I don't know of any library, even in a little tiny public library in the state of Montana, who doesn't provide some level of public services to its community, whether it's tax help or one of my favorite examples from um uh from a couple of past experiences was the public library in in a native community that left the Wi-Fi on at night so that people when they got off work or or kids who are getting off uh the basketball bus later that night, but that still needed to do some homework could pull up to the parking lot and still access that Wi-Fi with the devices that they had. And and that's thinking outside of the normal normal service model. But I think if if we're thinking more collaboratively that way, what are the basic services that our community needs, then every institution, um, you know, if we talk about public anchor institutions like hospitals, libraries, schools, um, then how do we build those those relationships between those institutions so that access and opportunity are maximized for the community and that the community's good. Um, you know, I I think about uh there's another small town a few miles up the I-90 from from uh Missoula, where I grew up, where the combined school community library um also has a food pantry. They're open all during the summer, and you know, that becomes the school and and the community um food uh area or food um collecting place. And so there are so many examples of that where it's just people recognized a need and they put the people together and the resources to fill it. And and so um, you know, ultimately every single one of us wants to contribute in a meaningful way to our community. And I think libraries, if they can um uh look forward um but also look left and right and and recognize who some really powerful, power, powerful partners are that we can um lead forward with that type of service model. And where I see that happening actually is where you're seeing bonds passed or um you know big commitments by communities to contributing dollars to building out or remodeling uh our public library facilities in particular. But um I think I think um you know the opportunities that COVID has presented to us are uh maybe the ability to finally look at some of the blind spots that we've had about what our responsibility is in public libraries, in in schools as well. Um, and then how are we going to uh pay that forward or use that when um so when when I think uh this is what I think, and what I'm already seeing is that um parents who have had their children at home or have had to share the responsibility in a bigger way for teaching, um there are some where their kids have that's been the best thing that could have happened to them. Um it was a more productive, more safe, more nurturing environment for so many kids. And so I think we're going to see whether it's a trend towards homeschooling or whether it's a trend, hopefully, that our public schools recognize that they need to expand what they how they define a learning environment and they resource those learning environments because parents are gonna want it. And if it's better for kids, then that's what we need to do. Um this has been a big test, and and hopefully teachers and principals and and communities are seeing that you know, despite some really um you know catastrophic things that have happened to us, um, a lot of school has gone on, a lot of learning has gone on, not necessarily traditional academic learning, but but we've opened up opportunities for kids that weren't there because we are so locked in the brick and mortar, you know, desks in a row factory model of education. So I think the consumers, the parents, um are gonna have some eyes opened about what they could expect from their schools and the schools that are planning forward to build out their digital ecosystems, to upskill their teachers in in their pedagogy and and how they're using the resources are really going to be winners. And although it's gonna probably take a few years to really be uh cooking in that direction, I do hope that that's an opportunity that we can we can gain out of this whole situation.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that was incredible and exactly the kind of things that we needed to hear. And uh we're gonna have to uh end it on that because uh although that's a great way to end it, you've given us some real challenges and things to think about. And we've just, you know, uh the tip of the iceberg kind of thing, Colet. So we're gonna have to have you back for another discussion with us and whatever. But uh some of your your ideas about the the shining a light on the on the gaps and new possibilities and opportunities that uh COVID has forced us to think about, which could be really good for us. So I want to thank you uh for your wisdom and your uh ideas and engaging with us. Thank you. And uh I'll I'll say I'll I'll be in touch with you. Dave, you want to say a final word?
SPEAKER_05No, I just other than thank you, a lot to think about. I mean, right now my head is spinning around the idea of how the the pandemic can lead to greater expectations for sort of humane and nurturing education environments on the parts of the parents. And I it, you know, if if nothing else comes out of the pandemic, then parents really understanding that one they've got to be part of making that happen and then pushing to make that happen, that would be an incredible outcome. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00Oh, such a pleasure. It's so great to visit with you, and yes, we will be in touch very soon, and I'll come back anytime.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, very joyful all around. Thank you. Yanni, take us out, and thank you too. Bye now. I think in the next episode, Dave and I will review some of these from uh points from Cole and uh talk about education and libraries and give our take and things. But now we're gonna move on and uh tie this particular episode up, and we're going on to our segment called the Awesome Library Thingy. This is the required final segment of the Libraries Lead of the New Normal podcast. So, Dave, what's your awesome library thingy for this episode?
SPEAKER_05My awesome thingy is um about MIT Library, and they've developed an open access agreement with the Public Library of Science, which I know sounds really dry, but I'm I'm a big I'm a big fan of the MIT libraries. Um, and and Chris Bors, who's the director, is fabulous. I'm not saying that just to kiss up because they also oversee MIT Press that I you know long to publish more of my books. But uh it's a really interesting setting because if if you look at the how MIT is structured, they have like a third of the number of students as they do faculty researchers and staff. And most of those faculty researchers and staff are actually in labs around um and associated with MIT Press, because it's a it's a research think tank almost more than it is a university. So the library tends to be small, but they've been pushing really hard over the past, well, many years, but particularly over the past five years on open access, they've developed um something called the S Plan Service Transparency Framework, which once again sounds obscure, but it comes down to the idea of with open access, who gets paid and how much they get paid and what's reasonable. And so the idea is that currently, if you want to get something published as an open access journal, as the author, you're normally paying a processing fee. So you're paying for the editorial work and the peer review. A lot of people build that into their grants because you can tell what it's sort of oriented towards the hard sciences. Um, and sometimes you can, in lieu of paying money, you can give service as an I will peer review, I will provide this. But it's it's kind of clunky. And what I really love about this one is what MIT Libraries has done is they've now forged a license with Public Library of Science and and their major publications that any MIT researcher, staff, faculty member, student, when they publish something in Public Library of Science, really high visibility, high impact journal, the library is gonna pay that. Um, and they're gonna base it on the standard fee. And so it what I like about this is it really is a matter of finding a solution to this. And it takes because libraries have financial power and they've been using it to buy back all of this copyrighted content that their authors, their their scientists are writing, and now they're gonna use it to support sharing that with the world. And I just so I I love this on so many levels open access, the idea it's really innovative, the idea that it is about spreading and making um knowledge, uh well not know making articles and research more available to the world, and it's in a business model concept where it's probably much more sustainable than what we're now. So if you have a chance, take a look um uh around MIT's uh this new innovative access agreement with the Public Library of Science.
SPEAKER_01Okay, could you put a reference or two in the Facebook page up in Facebook? Yep. Good. That sounds interesting, and we need that kind of thing. It shows you know library activism, so that's great. All right. Well, my awesome library, my library thingy, very, very different. It's actually a person. It's a school librarian and leader. Her name is Shannon McClintock Miller. Shannon is, and I love this title, Dave. This is a talk about uh a great title uh job. It's she is the innovation director of instructional technology and library media at Van Meter Community School in Van Meter, Iowa. And uh Shannon is one of those really go get them uh activist, advocate for libraries, school libraries. She's very involved with the Future Ready Librarians Group, um, which is part of the Future Ready.organization and the Facebook group. She's an advocate and a spokesperson and author. She's also a social media guru for school libraries. And I had recently read a piece that she had written or was co-written in something called District Administration. So instead of librarians talking to each other all the time, this is about administrators, school administrators. It's a publication for them, and how things are changing in her school and her district because of COVID and because of the pandemic. And she says, you know, in the past, librarians, we collaborated, school librarians with faculty, uh, with the teachers, but it was always, or mostly it was the librarian reaching out. It was very rare that the teacher would come to the school librarian. But now she says, what's happening, the teachers are coming to us saying, and this is a quote, can you help us do this? Can you help us find this resource? Or how do you put together something that the kids are going to create digitally? And, you know, Janet said that this is really exciting because it's the hook that we needed to continue the changes that are happening in education and in libraries. And this is really our time to make a difference. And she said that collaboration has quadrupled in just the last uh six to eight months, and that she hears it from librarians across the country, the same kind of thing. Again, these are school librarians, that we're the ones that manage and curate the resources that are being used in instruction and online. We're the ones that develop the libraries and the online learning and uh that brings new technology and innovation and ideas to teachers and students. She also said that they are also the literacy leaders, that it's a huge thing for teacher librarians who maybe weren't seeing as leaders before who needed that extra push and empowerment to be leaders from and beyond the library. That was also a quote from her. So to me, that's a pretty awesome library thingy from an awesome library person.
SPEAKER_05That's great. That's great. I know um uh when South Carolina's libraries, School Library Association, they have an award every year for the administrator of the year and in essence supporting libraries. And it's been really effective as a way of connecting in to the point where two years ago, one of the three sent one of the three finalists for librarian of the year in the state was a school librarian. And um, you know, it's those kinds of things are really gaining that attention about what's happening at the administrative level, the you know, seeing how they can directly feed into the outcomes of the students and the life of the administrator. So that's great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05It was it was awesome. School librarians are awesome. Let's face it. We both we both have a very, very big soft spot in our heart for school librarians.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I was a school librarian for almost 10 years, huh?
SPEAKER_05And your students survived, and that's that's that's yes, yes, they did. All right, Dave, take us out then. I want to thank uh Yanni and Ace. Uh I want to thank Mike. I want to thank uh the Publishers Weekly for putting us out. I want to thank the iSchool at South Carolina, and I want to hear you back here in about two weeks, and we'll do this again.
SPEAKER_01Okay, remember to um subscribe to us and rate us on Apple iTunes, Stitcher, Podcast Addict to wherever you listen to podcasts, and uh contact us via our Facebook group, and we'll be looking at other ways to communicate as well. So, Dave, you take care. Bye now, and thank you again, Yanni, and we're done.
