Monthly Archives: September 2009

The Agent of Library Instruction

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We’re doing some experimenting this year with our library instruction for the Princeton Writing Program which is making me wonder who should be the agent of library instruction. As part of our current experimentation, some of the burden for the most basic parts of the library instruction will fall on the experienced writing instructors, all of whom are experienced researchers in their own areas and all of whom have seen their assigned librarians go through the basic library research drill at least twice. They would also be given training and support by the librarians. The idea is that the simplest skills–the basics of searching the OPAC and an article database–would be taught by the writing instructor in an early library "discovery session," and the librarian would collaborate in a later "research clinic" and possibly meet individually with students for the most advanced portions of their research once they really got going on their projects.

I’m trying to think through the benefits and burdens of this approach, and also put the question out to my readers, many of whom do some sort of library instruction and have worthwhile perspectives to add on this.

There are certainly some possible downsides, depending on how the experiment works. Some writing instructors will probably not want to change a library relationship which has worked well in the past (though I’m sure there are other instructors who have been less than satisfied in the past). Some librarians might not want to change what they think works, either, but for this situation I think the satisfaction of the students and instructors should weigh more than our own, but I could be mistaken. About some things I tend to be a philosophical conservative; if things are going well, I think it’s better not to mess with them. But it’s not clear what’s going well, or what is going well uniformly. Regardless, the dislike of changing the familiar and satisfactory is a psychological cost worth considering.

There’s also the argument that this takes away some of the little time librarians get to work with students. If their instructors are teaching some of these skills, often not in the presence of the librarian, then that’s one less place where the librarian is needed. This is met by the counter-argument that the librarians will be seen as more valuable because they will be entering the process when the research gets more difficult, and thus be able to show their expertise to the students and win them over.

A related concern is about division of labor. Library research is within the domain of librarian expertise, and the instructors should stick to their area of expertise, which theoretically is the teaching of writing. This could be seen as a loss of professionalism, I suppose. If the instructors are successful, why do we need librarians? That sort of thing. There’s also the consideration that the instructors very well might not be able to do this as effectively as the librarians, for whatever reason.

An instructor I’ve worked with for years said that as an experienced researcher and teacher, she felt comfortable teaching the basics and knew much of the advanced stuff quite well, but nevertheless each time I’ve taught a session for her class she’s learned something she didn’t know about before. The issue here is possibly one of keeping up. Things change in the world of information technology in general, and in the organization of resources and services in our library in particular, and it’s the job of the librarian to keep up with everything, to know what’s changed and how best to navigate the available resources. As she put it, sometimes the things people don’t know aren’t the esoteric things, but the simple things. I have a feeling this would all be dealt with in the second session, but it’s certainly a concern.

I can understand the concern on the part of some librarians, but I see things from a slightly different perspective, since I teach one of these writing seminars and act as my own librarian. Undoubtedly, this is the ideal. In my own seminar the distinction between instructor and librarian disappears, and I can teach the research process much more seamlessly than most instructors. We don’t have our regular classes and then these classes where the alien librarian comes in and does "library stuff." I know what the students need at the time they need it. I can help them with whatever question might arise at any time.

In the version of the "research clinic" that I have already held for years with other seminars, the questions always vary. Sometimes the students need to talk to the instructor about the shape and possibility of their topic, and sometimes about finding stuff, supposedly the area of librarian expertise. Ideally, these things could be dealt with by the same person. Someone who knows the subject area of the assignment and also the library resources appropriate for research in that area equally well would be the ideal. (It’s a pity that training the trainer can’t go both ways, because I also find that my experience teaching both writing and research so extensively helps me immensely with my other research consultations.)

This symbiosis doesn’t occur in the normal classroom where the librarian is this person who comes in to work with the class in a limited role. Then again, the instructors themselves just aren’t as knowledgeable about the library portion of the research, and, depending on their areas, they might not be as knowledgeable about other aspects of academic research either, especially in any systematic way. For the process to work best, part of the class must be team taught, with the instructor and librarian each contributing. This does happen sometimes, and I’ve worked collaboratively with many instructors in limited ways, but how often does it or can it happen? The librarian can’t just show up to every class during research essay time and chime in occasionally when research advice is called for. A train-the-trainer model at least gives the students easier access to both writing and research help.

At this point I’m not sure what I think, and am conducting the experiment in a spirit of inquiry and just waiting to see how it turns out.

Twists and Turns of Principles

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Sometime soon I’m hoping to review the book Reinventing Knowledge, which I read recently and think academic librarians might find engaging, plus I want to offer a critique of this blog post from a new blog at Inside Higher Education written my my friend and colleague Mary George. But in a few days I start teaching my writing seminar on justice, and I can’t shake the concern with political rhetoric and, for that matter, justice itself.

I guess my post on the Counter-Enlightenment had no effect, since the reactionary Yahoos left their town meetings and stormed Washington, holding up signs comparing President Obama to Hitler and other fun things. I read in one news account that someone had a sign offering Obama a "free ticket back to Kenya." One of Lincoln’s desires before the Civil War was to free the slaves and send them to Africa, and it’s interesting to see that things remain the same with some members of the party of Lincoln. From what I could tell of the news accounts, that crowd in DC was very white and male.

The white male reactionaries out there interest me, but for my purposes here I’m disregarding all the loonies and the birthers (including those in Congress) and other conspiracy theorists, since those types make up an extreme portion of any movement. From the left we have David Icke claiming that President Bush (along with Queen Elizabeth and others) is actually a shape-shifting alien reptile who is working secretly to lead us to a New World Order dominated by the reptile aliens. Some very similar theories are now being spun by the right. I guess the only difference is that David Icke propagates his theories in books and videos almost no one pays attention to, whereas Glenn Beck gets a national television show and seems to have his finger firmly on the pulse of irrational populism. But rhetorically, conceptually, and intellectually, they’re quite similar.

From a rhetorical perspective, the events of the past few months have been fascinating. The Yelling Yahoos (and admittedly some of the right who are not Yelling Yahoos) claim that their recent protests are motivated by a concern with the cost of government, the size and scope of government, freedom, and lying Presidents, at least if I’m understanding the claims correctly. These are serious issues that deserve consideration by any concerned citizen. What’s odd is how the same folks showed no such concern when a previous President lied to the American people about Iraq, led the country into an unjustified multi-trillion dollar war, increased the national debt by combining outrageous war expenses with tax cuts for the rich, and increased the scope of government though such things as nationalizing the TSA and the Patriot Act.

My counter-Enlightenment post drew an earnest (and probably non-librarian) reader who tried to persuade me that yelling mobs weren’t really yelling mobs, or that they were yelling mobs but that they were yelling for good reasons, such as their concern with the scope of government and their freedom. But it should be extremely clear to anyone with eyes to see that people who claim to be motivated by principle but who only protest when that principle is compromised by someone of an opposing political party, then they’re not really motivated by principle so much as by partisan politics. Be motivated by partisan politics if you wish, choose your beliefs based on party rather than reason or justice if you must, but please don’t try to persuade others that you’re somehow principled. For some people, freedom’s just another word for not giving a damn about anyone else.

What I find bizarre isn’t that Republicans and reactionaries and others are coming out in force in opposition to President Obama. Democrats and progressives and such came out in some force against President Bush, and sometimes in just as inane and bizarre a fashion as the birthers are attacking Obama. Leftist frothing and hyperventilation at the mention of President Bush was never a pretty sight. I don’t even find it bizarre that they try to appeal to such principles as freedom or honesty or limited government. What I find bizarre is that considering the stances of many of these same people about the War in Iraq or the Patriot Act and other shenanigans of the Bush administration that they expect anyone to take their principled stand seriously, as my earnest commenter expected me to do to his position.

One cannot support the War in Iraq and plausibly claim to be against increasing the size and cost of government or offended by lying politicians. One cannot support the Patriot Act and plausibly claim to be concerned with the scope of government. One can’t cut taxes for the rich and plausibly claim to be concerned with national debt. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone is really opposed to the bogeyman of Big Government, but only what that Big Government might do. Fight a dubious war and disregard the Constitution and human rights in the name of security? Sure, that sounds like fun!. Help poor sick people get health care? Fascist dictatorship! How seriously can we possibly take some of these people?

Democratic politics provide for a turbulent and sometimes violent atmosphere. Such has always been the case. As citizens we should argue and fight, sometimes even protest and shout, for our political beliefs. And I at least can certainly see much to criticize about President Obama’s handling of health care reform (though my criticisms would be different from the reactionaries). But it should be obvious that whatever is motivating the criticisms of the protesters, it is almost certainly not the principles that some of them claim. Appealing to principles only when they support your side doesn’t make one principled, but merely an opportunist, or perhaps what the great conservative Edmund Burke called sophisters and calculators.

There’s no hope for reasoned discussion until the true principles of the disagreement are laid bare, and until the public dialog is no longer driven by Yahoos. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Famouser Than I Was

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I think I have finally arrived. No, I don’t have my own Wikipedia entry, but I do have my own Mahalo page. Mahalo bills itself as "human-powered search," though this page seems to have been auto-generated.  But that doesn’t distract from the glowing pride I now feel about being famous, or at least famouser than I was. After all, I bet you don’t have your own Mahalo page, now do you? Considering what an Internet phenomenon all Bivens-Tatums are, you might want to "claim" that page and make yourself up to $50 a month!

What’s great is all the things I get to learn about myself. I knew all the stuff in the links. I have a blog and a couple of articles in the U. of Nebraska digital commons. After seeing the link, I remember that at some point in the past I joined Linkedin. And I still work at Princeton. Three of the images are even of me, and one of the other images bears a striking resemblance to a former colleague, who is also a male academic librarian with glasses and a beard. There aren’t many of those around, so that’s probably close enough.

However, I was somewhat surprised to see that my "products and merchandise" included two calculus books by Howard Anton. Considering how expensive they are, I should be getting some profit on those, and you can be sure I’ll be contacting Wiley just as soon as I finish this post.

I was even more surprised to find the "Mahalo Answers for wayne bivens tatum." "What do you think of Jacob Wayne Peacocks art?" This must really be a Mahalo question for me, and my answer would have to be, I don’t think about it at all, since I have no idea who he is. I don’t feel too bad, because he probably has no idea who I am, either. There are three questions about someone or something called Lil Wayne, including, "What do you think about Lil Wayne making a rock record?" When I hear Little Wayne, the first mental association is with Little Elvis (def. 1), and I really don’t want to think about Little Wayne making a rock record, or performing at the Grammys for that matter.

The Google ads seems spot-on, too. Elderly home care near Fort Wayne, IN is definitely something I might be interested in one day if I’m ever elderly and living in Fort Wayne. And if I were in Wayne, MI, a back specialist might be just the thing. I do suffer from a touch of lumbago occasionally, and being in Wayne, MI might set it off, especially if I had to drive all the way there. The 8-hour calculus dvd tutor would probably do me good, since I know bugger all about calculus, which no doubt surprises you given my relationship to the two calculus books I mentioned earlier.

This year I’ve been doing workshops on emerging search technologies, and Mahalo has figured in them all. I’m happy that now I’ll have a page to show the audience as an example of all that Mahalo is capable of. All in all, I have to say I’m as impressed by Mahalo as I’ve ever been.