However engaging, thought-provoking, and even polarizing the speakers were at the Future of Academic Libraries Symposium presented by McMaster University and Library Journal, they couldn’t match what five McMaster University students had to say. “Hearing from Our Users: What Students Expect,” moderated by Mike Ridley, CIO and chief librarian at the University of Guelph, offered the most striking, honest, and emotionally charged views of the entire day. It gave symposium participants a glimpse at students’ perceptions and opinions. Ridley urged the panel to “tell us what we need to hear,” and they did. While all five own a smartphone, not one said they had ever accessed library […]
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Presenting at the Educause Learning Initiatives (ELI) conference last January in Austin, TX, was a seminal moment for me. I found my tribe of like-minded educators and technologists examining what it means to be teaching and creating learning environments in the 21st century. What I didn’t find was too many librarians; roughly seven to eight percent of the 500-plus attendees were librarians. (Note to readers: put this dynamic conference on your radar. We should be there to represent and participate in the conversations.) Beyond the benefits of finding like-minded thinkers, ELI forced me to articulate my personal goals as an […]
By Michael Stephens I recently had a phone chat with a valued colleague who runs a university library. He had been working hard to streamline staffing and budgets owing to a financial shortfall, while holding steady to a strategic plan anchored in creating useful information and collaboration spaces for the student body. I asked the question I always ask when I’m talking to someone who hires new librarians: “What other skills and competencies should a new librarian have?” His response? “I want risk-takers…innovators…creatives….I don’t want someone who’s afraid to make a move or make a decision without getting permission.” We […]
I totally forgot to link to my July column: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/06/opinion/michael-stephens/learning-to-learn-office-hours/ How might staff development days evolve? I was impressed with the activities at Highland Park Public Library, IL, when I spoke at the library’s staff day a couple of years ago. Staff participated in a live, hands-on “passport to technology” program. Stations around the building offered staff members the chance to try out new devices and new web services offered by the library. The Best Buy Geek Squad was in attendance as well, offering encounters with popular and best-selling consumer tech. At each station, employees received a stamp in a […]
Honored to have written a third joint column with Aaron Schmidt! http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/07/opinion/aaron-schmidt/creating-a-library-lis-feedback-loop/ Recent articles from voices in the field of library and information science (LIS) have questioned the value of the MLIS or pointed toward an uncertain and evolving future. Former LJ editor in chief Michael Kelley’s “Can We Talk About the MLS?” garnered much attention. Kelley argues that the profession should have a serious conversation about the values and merits of formalized, professional LIS education. Is the library degree, in his words, “an expensive and unnecessarily exclusionary credential”? Kelley’s call for discussion is a sound one and is echoed in Brian […]
My new “Office Hours” column is up at Library Journal: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/05/opinion/michael-stephens/best-of-both-worlds-office-hours/ It’s a response to this letter last month in LJ by Krystal Taylor, an LIS student at IUPUI Indianapolis: Something quite disturbing is happening to my LIS program…. As of next semester, the program is going almost exclusively to online courses. Due to low enrollment of our courses on campus, the school has decided to move online in an attempt to keep the program alive. I understand this need, but at what cost will this be to the library and information science field? From the column: Taylor writes, “Having taken […]
My new column is up at the LJ site: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/03/opinion/michael-stephens/lost-control-not-a-problem-office-hours/ In a discussion after a recent presentation, an educator stood to make a counterpoint to my take on participatory teaching. “I’m paid to have control,” she said. More than one person in the room gasped. I should have directed her to the new Horizon Report. Among the key trends identified as those impacting teaching and learning for 2013 is an emphasis on “open.” The report states, “Open is a key trend in future education and publication, specifically in terms of open content, open educational resources, massively open online courses, and open access.” Open […]
I for got to post last month’s LJ column here at TTW: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/02/opinion/michael-stephens/essential-soft-skills/ I would add other soft skills such as intuition, political awareness, and a willingness to make and learn from our mistakes. Transparency is evolving into an even more clearly defined “full frontal” strategy for some corporations—putting it all out there. We should follow suit. Library schools should teach case studies of failed library systems and initiatives. We must study our failures as much as we study our successes. There seems to be an ongoing unwillingness to do this. But in fact some libraries make bad decisions, and […]
What keeps you up at night? I ask this question at some of my library conference presentations as a way to break the ice and get people sharing. The answers are usually in a similar vein: budgets, ebooks, and losing relevance. We might even call those answers the unholy trinity of librarian insomnia. Relevance seems to be the most troublesome for our profession as we find ourselves yet again doing all those things that begin with “re”: reimagining, reinvigorating, and renewing this, that, and the other. And just as librarians struggle with relevance, I sincerely hope those of us in […]
I wrote about working on re-evaluating our core classes at “Office Hours” last month. Robert Boyd, one of our faculty, continues the discussion at our CIRI Blog: http://ischoolapps.sjsu.edu/blogs/wp/ciri/2012/12/17/a-reimagined-core/ I am also using some new-found time between semesters to read and reflect on two noted thinkers/practitioners, one old and one new. The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman was originally published in 1852 where Newman proposed the theoretical underpinnings of what would become University College, Dublin. At core, Newman argued “the general principles of any study you may learn by books at home; but the detail, the colour, the tone, […]