Banned Book Week--Banned Websites Awareness Day: A Contrast

Banned Book Week has become a mainstay cause and publicity event for libraries across the country. It is an important week to advocate for the intellectual freedom that author and librarians seek to support and uphold in public spaces. I can't help but feel, though, that some of our advocacy can feel rather antiquated today and often puts a softened veneer on the face of censorship. Many of the displays I have seen often highlight books that have been banned in the past, but are in most cases  deemed culturally acceptable now. Even displays that discuss more recent books, such as Harry Potter and Hunger Games, fit into this category. This approach presents censorship  as something fading into obsolescence, and thus takes the urgency out of the message.

Now not all programs follow this model, many have found great ways to better connect children to the issues, whether through viral readings, book clubs, or more, but I think it is hard for children to grasp the concept of banned books if we discuss books they can read. Perhaps the brave, but scary challenge is to discuss those books that continue to be challenging to today's culture. I have seen some great physical displays placing books behind bars, or police caution tape. What if the books behind these barriers were books that actually more relevant to children today? What if books that had actually recently been challenged in the district were displayed and openly discussed? What if web resources were the primary examples used?

I think too often we treat Banned Book Week as a remembrance week. "Remember all the awful things we used to do, but look at how much better we are now." By oversimplifying and antiquating the story of censorship we risk removing the emotion that is central to such cases today. Children are motivated by their own engagement in an issue and librarians miss an opportunity to gain young fervent advocates in this way.

A second concern is the medium we focus on. We spend a whole week discussing banned print books, but only one day advocating for Banned Website Awareness. That inequity does not match the relative role we have placed on these tools in the modern library. As librarians, we have made massive strides over the past decade to better incorporate digital materials and technology initiatives. We have gone so far as to make these standards of our profession. However, while we have been aggressively forward-thinking in providing users access to and information about new mediums, we have fallen behind in defending everyone's right to access information via the internet.

For children, I think this is an even bigger area where we can engage them to become participants in their own advocacy. This ascribes to the active-based learning that teachers and librarians are seeking to promote everywhere. A great Banned Website Day project I saw on the New York Times' Learning Network blog asked students to explore if there were restrictions and filters placed on their school computer use, and to challenge these practices by examining their effects. Such programs appeal to kids through the technologies that they are using, present the urgency and presentness of these issues, and allow for direct student advocacy. This type of contemporary engagement is too often missing from Banned Book Week. I think we need to shift the focus in our advocacy against censorship in the same ways that we have shifted our focus in our libraries.

MOOC's and their Place in Libraries

The most recent Chronicle of Higher Education special report covers the fascinating world of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). With a growing attention, participation, and curiosity about these offerings, we should start thinking about the role of MOOCs in our libraries.

Through interfaces like Coursera, EdX, and others, individuals now have access to a vast array of free, online courses offered by some of the top universities, including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, UC-Berkeley, and UVA. While these offerings are still somewhat amorphous, and do not currently offer credit, they do offer full-featured online class environments, including detailed assignments, and video-archived lectures and discussion forums. There is much still unsettled about these courses and how they will operate going forward, but there does seem to be a major groundswell for such offerings, from both the university perspective as well as the broader public.

Because there is such public interest in MOOCs, it is important for libraries to think about how such massive courses can support our principles. Just as collaborations between schools and libraries have proven to be so effective, collaborations between MOOCs and libraries also offer some great potentials. Of course, the relationship is a different one, though. One phenomena that has developed out of these MOOCS are local discussion groups forming and meeting in places like coffee-houses, libraries, etc. If the public library were to publicize this as a program it could further facilitate such peer connections, foster community, increase knowledge, and all cost the library very little. This also helps to overcome one of the major concerns over MOOCs, that they eliminate important face-to-face time.

There is also value in these courses, though, for teen service librarians. I can envision MOOC-inspired educational and informational programming for young adult users. Similar discussion groups based around a MOOC course or lecture are easy opportunities to capitalize on this popularity and hopefully bring teens into the library space. By offering college-style courses, certain teens who are seeking further enrichment have an environment to express that. Furthermore, from an informational perspective, what better way to give teens a sense of a college course, than to participate in a college course through MOOC? Just as teen programming often includes support for standardized test preparation, and college-seeking resources available in the library, they can also provide an environment to discuss a modeled college course through MOOCs.

I would be interested to hear of libraries that have started such programs and if they have found engagement with the public. Do you see other ways that MOOCs can be incorporated into libraries and the broader reading community?  While much is still unkown concerning MOOcs, with the budget challenges that so many libraries face, the wealth of free instruction available should be seen as a valuable resource going forward.

The Library's "Ground Game"

As we move ever closer to election day, we hear more and more in the news about the importance of each political party's ground game. While this has been called the first social media election, and we have been fascinated with the high-tech campaign applications and the use of social networking, many in the media are once again pointing back to the old-fashioned ground game as a vital difference-maker in the next few weeks.  Yahoo News's Walter Shapiro discussed this in a recent article, noting that while "the voter contact lists may be based on sophisticated algorithms... the streetwalkers and the door-knockers of politics still depend on time-honored techniques like broad smiles, practiced pitches and infinite patience."

I think this is a great analogy to what we as librarians face today. We can encourage eye-catching technology, we can develop great city-wide and national programs, but in developing these advanced and complex plans, we can not ignore the importance of the "ground game."  I see this often in the public libraries I visit. Access to great digital resources, and great web designs are important and do encourage users and visitors. Great pedagogically-sound early learning resources made publicly available in libraries offer another great opportunity to encourage early reading. But all these efforts are often only as effective as the on-the-ground interaction that librarians can provide for visitors.

The importance of the reference desk librarian can not be lost in the flood of technology. Similar to the political campaigns, it is the broad smiles, ready answers, and infinite patience of the youth services librarian that can make or break a child's experience with books and reading, or provide a care-giver with the critical resources to encourage such skills. A good reference desk librarian can help build a lifelong connection to the library. But the opposite is also true. As libraries face budget constraints, I too often find that the librarian sitting at the children's reference desk is not a specialist in that field, and is unable to provide users with the answers and resources they need. Alternatively, an aloof and disengaged reference desk librarian can similarly dampen user's experiences.

I am a major proponent of technology in the library. And I am also very committed to creating and disseminating learning resources to libraries to help encourage early reading. These programs and technologies can be essential to improving library usage and teaching best practices. But, it is important to remember that in most cases, these tools are only as valuable as "ground game librarians" can make them. We have to support our local and branch librarians to best facilitate the use of our far-reaching library resources.

Study Like a Scholar, Scholar

While settling into the work week on this Monday morning, I have been reading a lot about user-need and library instruction. Somehow that vein of inquiry has brought me here.

Check out this video from the Brigham Young University's Library Multimedia Crew. Sure, its over 2 years old, but if its not new to you, it is to me. If you have not seen it, check it out. Its kinda awesome.

Do you think this type of video is something that can actually help market the school/university library? Is it worth the investment of time and money? What if it weren't so darn good?

Let  me know what you think.

Cheers!