Connect people to information and information technology, particularly to promote a just and equitable society.

 

1.1 Knowledge Production: Demonstrates how knowledge is produced, disseminated and verified in different disciplines and the public domain, including: what entities control knowledge production; document forms produced and what knowledge is contained in each form.

 

1.2 Curation: Articulates a rationale for collection decisions based on community  needs; selecting materials

 

1.3 Description: Articulates the difference between physical and intellectual access; role of tools that can facilitate one or both of those; understands the implications for descriptive schemas; understands searching tools, finding aids, natural language vs. controlled vocabulary (official search terms- system dependent- be able to understand, explain, apply)

 

1.4 Organization: Describes agreed upon methods for organizing information; control of and roles of meta-data; analyze strengths and weaknesses of standard organization tools

 

1.5 Human Information Needs and Behaviors: Articulates a basic understanding of human information needs and behaviors and describes how the many forms of diversity in our society impact information provision.

 

1.6 Technology: Describes the dynamic nature of information technology and how it is employed to connect people to information and to teach others to build community.

 

1.7 Professional Ethics: Articulates ethical perspectives on the organization and provision of information with an emphasis on promoting a just and equitable society; using new language to reflect community (e.g., how they used to classify LGBTQ+ under "deviant" behavior)

 

Evidence

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• LIS 618 Literature Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BFdtcsCVv1Ylghm_AW8kKocyz0neREgbg4MPbb1IdQk/edit?usp=sharing

  • 1.2, 1.4, 1.6

• LIS 620 Libguide: https://uncg-lis.libguides.com/birds-of-a-feather

  • 1.1, 1.2, 1.3    Also see "PSA" video here.

• LIS 635 Digital Curation: https://www.librarything.com/catalog/hsinman/diversepicturebooks

  • 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 1.7

 

One of the essential functions of a librarian is to curate a collection that meets the needs of the student body at a particular school, ideally, a collection in which students find authors who speak in their own voice and discover other authors and books that can introduce them to people and cultures unlike their own. At the same time, that curation must be organized in a way that enables students to find the books they want and need. These days, that structure must be available both in physical and digital formats including both printed books, e-books, and other online materials. In my MLIS program and the first few months as a school librarian myself, I have developed a number of guides that will help readers find books. I have included a few examples of such guides in this portfolio.

 

For the youngest readers (K-3), I have assembled a collection of twenty recently published picture books with an emphasis on a diverse, “own voices” texts, including contextualizing the immigrant experience with books from authors from a wide variety of different countries. This resource is primarily for teachers, librarians, and parents and was implemented using the “LibraryThing” online cataloging tool. This is a collection of books that I researched and organized myself, but I have also included a short “PSA” video about how to use LibraryThing, which I have found very helpful. The website not only allows you to tag books with topic/theme phrases, but to use those to search for books others have tagged with the same tags. Consequently, the work required by one person to tag a small set of books is exponentially amplified by the work of others to make it much easier to access and retrieve similar high-quality titles.

 

I have also linked to an example of a literature log using Google Sheets. This log is primarily for young adult readers, including those in high school. This includes twenty recently published books from a diverse group of authors that I reviewed and documented for this list. While Google Sheets isn’t a standalone library-specific tool, it is used in many classrooms and most students will be familiar with sorting, scrolling, and searching this format. Using the technology students are already familiar with shortens the distance between readers and the books they want and need.

 

The third example of an organized curation here takes the form of a standard libguide. The libguide, primarily aimed at high school students, is focused on the topic of birding in North Carolina and utilizes a number of tools to help library users find additional resources, including high quality content in the public domain. Birding has become a more popular pastime recently, and such libguides can serve as a useful resource for the local birding community. Such libguides are common on any library homepage and help to serve two functions: providing immediate answers to commonly asked questions and generating additional interest in other library resources and/or research support services.

 

Together, libguides and curated collections, especially when they are provided using searchable digital technologies, greatly improve the access and retrieval of information.

 

References

 

Kim, S., Raza, M., & Seidman, E. (2019). Improving 21st-century teaching skills: The key to effective 21st-century learners. Research in Comparative and International Education, 14(1), 99-117. https://doi-org.proxy180.nclive.org/10.1177/1745499919829214

 

Naidoo, J. C. (2014, April 5). The importance of diversity in library programs and material collections for children [White paper]. Association for Library Service to Children. https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/alsc/content/ALSCwhitepaper_importance%20of%20diversity_with%20graphics_FINAL.pdf