The Sheck READS

Reading...It Never Gets Old.

Soon to be the Sheck's Staff picture on the Library Contact Page.

The Future of the Net

The greatest thanks to Michael Sauer at the Travellin' Librarian for posting this video by Lawrence Lessig.



I will be including this video in my course on Technology, Politics, and Democracy this semester. Not only does it offer students an important definition of Net Neutrality but it also asks students to think about how their rights and freedoms, how the foundations of governance and society, democracy itself, are impacted by the Internet. It is something I'm not sure many people think about...though luckily I am in a field where many do.

"I" is for Inspiration, "L" is for "Loving It"

It's been a whirlwind since I returned from San Diego. We are in full countdown-to-school-starting mode at the Library and that means PROJECTS and PLANNING.

From an IL point of view, all those exercises and handouts from Immersion have really paid off. The incredible team of librarians at Champlain have been 100% on board with our planning for a big year of teaching and I am so grateful. We are working together to develop programmatic goals, create activities for students that are creative and meaningful (it sounds so easy, doens't it), and prepare ourselves for a heavy teaching schedule this fall. It's a lot for me, as I am sure it is for them. But we are talking it out, especially in thinking about what we need to succeed. Here are a few of the things that have made it to our list:

1. A shared vision. CRUCIAL. One of the things I wish for most is for all of the librarians embrace the program but also the reason behind the program. One of the first things we have done is to develop a list of goals that is meaningful for all of us and that we all can stand behind. It has been a wonderful way of learning about how we each understand and imagine an IL program.

2. Awareness of our differences and styles. Again, so important. One of the things that really stuck with me from an Immersion reading was Parker Palmer's belief in maintaining your identity and integrity in the classroom. While we have goals and outcomes to meet in each session, each librarian is their own person and their own teacher. We will approach classes in our own ways. I appreciate that difference and am glad that this was brought.

3. Openness to Failure. This is a new initiative at Champlain and a new way of teaching for many of us. For myself, the Immersion mantra "Fail Often to Succeed Sooner" is a hard but important one for me to chant. I am an overacheiver and have high expectations for myself and others. I know this about myself. Failing is always hard for me. But, learning is not. And that is how we are going to view our failures, as an opportunity to learn and celebrate our efforts. We are trying new things, and that is such an incredible acheivement for a group to do together.

4. Communicate. Whether it be to ourselves, to our director, to the faculty, to the students, to the division...in order for us to succeed in the coming year we need opportunities to share experiences and ideas with one another.

Again, I am reminded again and again how lucky I am to work with these librarians. They are facing the challenge of a new program with such grace, enthusiasm, and determination. For example, while talking about what some of the opportunities for the coming year may be, one colleague said that the new IL program was an opportunity for personal growth. She was looking forward to trying new things. So inspiring.

Finally, speaking of growth and inspiration, Champlain has welcomed a new librarian to the fold. Andy Burkhardt is our new Emerging Technologies Librarian. He blogs over at Information Tyrannosaur and you can read his brief intro to our college community at our library blog. I am thrilled to have Andy with us. In just a few short weeks, he is generating a ton of great ideas. Awesome.

Immersion: Day 5 and Beyond

So here I am, at 10 pm (PCT), waiting to get onto the red-eye back to the lushness and simplicity of Vermont. It's amazing to travel to other parts of the country and realize how lucky I am to live in a place that nurtures so many sides of myself. Besides missing my husband, my dog, and my garden, I miss the pace of life in VT. While I hate flying overnight, I look forward to waking up tomorrow at home.

Immersion was a truly remarkable experience. I feel like I have developed a vision for our IL program as well as a series of steps to try with which to realize it. I feel like I learned a lot about how to capitalize on my strengths and develop my weaknesses. I feel like I am prepared to respond constructively to criticism and generate interest and enthusiasm for my program. I feel like I have a network with which to brainstorm, question, and collaborate. Good things.

I also feel like I could use some time reviewing my notes and reflecting for a while. The one thing I wish I had had more time for is reflection. As I think back to the past week, I feel like I haven't had as much time to process as I would like. I hope I can find some time for that in the next few days, if not weeks. Sadly, that is not what my schedule has in mind once I return to Champlain. Still, I look forward to returning to work on Monday and talking to my director.

Anyone who is thinking about participating in an Immersion, I highly recommend it. I also recommend spending some time in a different mode immediately thereafter. I was terribly fortunate to have a wonderful friend in the area whisk me away to relax, rejuvinate, and come back into myself after being on the go and at the top of my mental game for a week. It has really allowed me to settle into my thoughts and I am grateful for it.

More blog posts to come about Immersion and our program. though we will be on whirlwind mode upon my return to VT. Especially because I imagine some time in the garden will be necessary and warranted. But I tend to feel like putting my hands in the dirt can help me achieve the kind of meaningful and reasonable decisions and design that I've spent the last week thinking about.

Immersion: At the Library (End of Day 4)

The last part of day 4 was all about working on our action plans to bring back to our libraries.
(Did I say this already? Please excuse me, my brain is like swiss cheese at this point.)

Anyway, I decided to take this opportunity to check out what I am lovingly calling the Dr. Seuss Library. UC San Diego has the Geisel Library. The motto in front of the doors reads: Read. Write. Think. Dream. All the glass and levels of the buildings seems to encapsulate those very principles in its design. It's a good model for the program I am trying to design, no?


I have to say, it has been a number of years since I have been in a large research library. Granted, I went to library school at Illinois in Urbana Champaign which is the biggest of them all but still...I was taken aback when I walked in. I thought about all the students that come to Champlain and wonder how to get about in the Library. Imagine what students at UCSD must think. It's no wonder that Library orientations are so vital at these large institutions!

As I wandered around, I saw a sign for the Seuss Room. I love Dr. Seuss. Any opportunity to read Dr. Seuss to my nephew (only one of my three charges is into Dr. Seuss anymore), I take it. So imagine my joy at seeing original sketches and drawings on display. Even though I was in Special Collections before coming to Champlain, I forgot what it is like to have such pieces of history and beauty available for learning, exploration, and inspiration.

Finally, with my deadline quickly approaching, I sought somewhere to sit. I was hoping for something a little more exciting and encouraging of reflection that the traditional table and chairs. I came across this little oasis on one of the bottom floors. It was wonderful to have so much light and life around me as I tried to pull together my dreams for our program, the strategies to apply to make them happen, the constituents I hope to involve, and the places where I am going to start.

Can you tell that I was ready to be somewhere other than in a conference room?

Immersion: Day 3 and 4

Clearly, Immersion is intense and intensive so the chance to blog has been slim the last 36 hours. In part, and this is almost hard to believe myself, this is because the little time I have to myself is spent putting things together. Yes, after only 4 days, I feel like I have a new concept of what an excellent Information Literacy Program is. While I think that Champlain has some truly essential pieces of such a program in place, there are certainly things that we will have to spend time thinking about, planning for, developing, and implementing. Perhaps the most important thing I am taking away from this experience (how many times have I said that?) is that creating a program, especially an excellent program, takes time.

Pacing myself is a true personal challenge for me. As the Leadership skills assessment showed, I am a big picture person. Ideas flow out of me and I have a tendency to capture a good percentage of them on this blog, in notebooks I carry around, on sticky notes, etc. I have so many ideas, some of them really good, that I want to act on them, NOW. Right now. I am aware that this is one of my shortcomings. And I think listening to someone like Deb Gilchrist emphasize how long she has been at this and how many iterations she has gone through settles me down a bit. Mary Macdonald, a truly wonderful storyteller, shared many experiences of trial and error that she has drawn on to improve and revamp her program. Karen Williams has spoken a lot about the time it has taken to get buy in from her administrations and librarians, let alone faculty. All of these librarians have success stories that I have learned a lot from but it is also their failures that really help me see where to go and not go. What to try and not try. On the first day of Immersion, they showed us a video about IDEO. The CEO of the company says "Fail often so you can succeed sooner." That has been a motto here at Immersion. I think it's a good one for me.

So, where I am at this point? Swimming in thoughts. The rest of today is spent creating action plans for us to bring back to our institutions that identify Action items, Rationale, Evidence of completion/ expected outcome, Strategy, Support needed, Constituents/ stakeholders, and Starting points/ components. I've started writing a narrative that is mostly for myself. I hope to put it into something less lengthy and more usable for me and my library. I appreciate the timeline they emphasize: 6 mos - 1 year. As I said, there are so many ideas running through my mind at this point, if I didn't think about the immediates, I think I would find the starting point difficult to find.

Later today, we will be vetting drafts of our action plans with our cohort. Here we are, brainstorming a bit:
These are some wonderful, creative, smart, collaborative librarians who I hope I can work with and turn to in the future (in no order): Nicole Brown, Barett Havens, Evangela Oates, Jennifer Sigalet, April Cunningham. I am so happy to have met and worked with them. They made this not only an educational experience but a fun one.

Immersion: Day 2

Bam. Bam. Bam.

The sound of synapses firing.

After only two days, I have 18 pages of notes, 3 full page lists of TO DO for when I return, new tools for assessment, activities for both my librarians and my classes, and about 25 different authors to look up and start reading. It's a lot to take in. I'm so glad I brought my running shoes so that I can get outside a little bit, and I mean little, to clear my head and process.

Day 2 has focused mainly on assessment, the element to IL programs in which I am most interested and in which I am in need of the most help. Deb Gilchrist is running the assessment show and she is wonderfully insightful. Assessment brings up a lot of questions and I have a tendency to be bogged down with the philosophical questions it often encapsulates but Deb has really helped me to focus my attention on the most important thing: the student. This is best demonstrated in the "5 Questions" we are using to develop outcomes:
1. What do you want students to be able to do?
2. What do they need to know to do this well?
3. What activity will facilitate learning?
4. How will the student demonstrate their learning?
5. How will we know that the student has done this well.

These are the leading questions in developing student learning outcomes and I think that we are well on our way at Champlain. However, there is more to it than that. The overall IL program needs outcomes too. That is what I am focusing on for the rest of the time here. I am trying, and I emphasize trying, to develop outcomes that are meaningful, reasonable, and transferable. Sounds easy, right. Yeah...not so much. Trying to capture all the things that we want our program to be and to do in a concise, impactful, measurable statement is really quite difficult. But it is wonderful to be working at tables with librarians that are struggling to do the same thing. The "5 Questions" I am thinking about at the program level are:
1. What do we want to achieve?
2. How will we know our outcomes are met?
3. What data do we need to gather?
4. What can we learn from the data?
5. What changes are necessary as a result of that learning?
Outcome--Criteria--Assessment--Analysis--Change.
Outcome--Criteria--Assessment--Analysis--Change.
Outcome--Criteria--Assessment--Analysis--Change.
Outcome--Criteria--Assessment--Analysis--Change.

I'm working on it.
One last thing that I have really been thinking about: measuring what is valued. We can measure all sorts of things through assessment but the true challenge is to identify and measure what's important.

I'm telling you...this is tough stuff to think about. I am loving it.

One last note: there was an earthquake in LA yesterday and we did indeed feel it here. It was my first earthquake, and pretty shocking. Immersion makes the earth move.