My new column is up at Library Journal: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/01/opinion/michael-stephens/actions-and-answers-office-hours/ The attitudes or reflective action, highlighted in an article by Grant and Zeichner (2001), includes open-mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness. All are important and resonate deeply with me and my philosophy of what librarianship should be about. Approaching something with a sense of wholeheartedness means we are all in all the time, not just when it’s convenient. It means bucking the status quo to do the right thing at the right moment. It means owning our actions as professionals. I am most excited about this evolution of who we are and what we do […]
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New column! http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/opinion/michael-stephens/always-doesnt-live-here-anymore-office-hours/ That said, I must comment on some threads of conversation I had at the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference in Las Vegas. In 2006, I wrote a post at Tame the Web (TTW) entitled “Five Phrases I Hope I Never Hear in Libraries Again.” It got a lot of traction back then, during the heyday of LIS blogging, and I used a slide of the phrases for many years in presentations. One of the phrases was: We’ve always done it this way. Back then I wrote, “I think it’s time to red flag any utterance of that […]
Here’s my June column: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/06/opinion/michael-stephens/in-the-moment-office-hours/ More than once, someone in the audience has expressed concern that children and young people are always looking at their mobile device, texting, gaming, or whatever. Recently the comment was this: “I want to take away the iPad and send them outside. They are not in the moment.” My reply was a reminiscence of my mother taking away my Hardy Boys books and sending me out to play one summer day. I was furious! The seminar room vibrated with comments: “It’s the same thing.” “It’s not the same thing!”
Oops – forgot to post this: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/07/opinion/michael-stephens/flipping-the-lis-classroom-office-hours/ I’m most excited about the requirement for student reflection blogging in this course. Discussion forums, landlocked inside the learning management system, are giving way to a WordPress-enabled blog community that all of our core students will work with for thoughts on the course content. I am a longtime advocate of the power of blogging as a means to foster critical reflection in a safe thinking-out-loud space and promote engagement with other students and faculty via commenting. The Sloan Consortium, devoted to effective online education, recently heralded a similar model: the University of Nevada […]
Here’s last month’s column – all about getting too hung up on citation formatting: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/09/opinion/michael-stephens/citation-fixation-office-hours/ But wait—shouldn’t we be teaching soon-to-be librarians how to cite properly so they in turn can deliver the gospel to their young charges in the university? And grading them down for every missed period or italicized article title? I’d argue that instead of citation fixation we promote reflection and consideration of the ideas presented in our courses. To synthesize is a sometimes overused verb in higher education, but it works in this instance. Students encountering new ideas and voices of any discipline are better served by someone […]
From Office Hours “Reflective Practice:” PUTTING A FACE ON THE LIBRARY This reminds me that the library should be human. It means that behind the keyboard, behind the blog, and behind the Facebook page, there’s a person ready to have a conversation: ready to help, ready to listen. For example, New Zealand’s Christchurch City Libraries’ Twitter page includes the photos of all of the official “tweeters” for the library. I toured Christchurch recently. The city suffered in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The libraries there adapted, sometimes changing locations, sometimes working in adverse conditions. Through it all, there has continued […]
My new May column is available at LJ: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/05/opinion/michael-stephens/library-as-classroom-office-hours/ I’d argue that our libraries of all kinds also serve as creative classrooms, supporting learners by employing the building blocks mentioned above. Just explore some of the notable examples of academic, public, and K-12 library spaces shared here in LJ over the past few months. You’ll find community learning spaces that help people achieve, game-focused initiatives that make the library a laboratory for exploration, creation zones with requisite digital and 3-D hardware for building things, and potentially endless opportunities to connect virtually with people worldwide.
My new column is up at Library Journal, all about our research concerning The Hyperlinked Library MOOC. Also, I’m very happy to announce we’ll be teaching a revised and updated version of the #hyperlibMOOC in Spring 2015. http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/04/opinion/michael-stephens/lessons-from-hyperlibmooc-office-hours/ LIBRARIAN’S ROLES Kyle and I wrote a paper for the proceedings of the 16th Distance Library Services Conference this month in Denver based on this post-MOOC survey question: “Reflecting on your MOOC experience, what roles do you think librarians might play within MOOCs?” The identified roles include: Guide Rarely in the library, working on the go, from home or third place, or amid […]
My new column is up at Library Journal: Let’s unpack this sweeping suggestion for improving libraries further. What of teaching ability? I advise my students to make sure they take courses in user instruction and technology, no matter where they want to work. Delivering instruction should be a part of every professional’s skill set: in a training room, across the desk, in the stacks, on the fly. Maybe it’s time to add creating a short training session or learning module to the interview process for all librarians, not just those in colleges or schools. Borrowed from Apple, the Genius Bar […]
My new column is up at Library Journal and it’s all about the incredible community of LIS folks in new Zealand: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/12/opinion/michael-stephens/notes-from-some-small-islands-office-hours/ Something struck me about this conference, in addition to my interactions with the library folk I met as we traveled down the North Island, stopping in Wellington for a talk I gave at Victoria University and on to the South Island. At a combination #hyperlibMOOC and library folk tweet up held at Pomeroy’s Pub in Christchurch, I finally asked the assembled group, “Why does the LIS community here feel so cohesive and tight-knit? Is it the isolation?” Between the […]