I know, I know…I haven’t blogged in about a gazillion, persqillion millenia. But I’ve been stupid busy and haven’t been stricken by the necessity to put finger to keyboard by anything until now.
I just got back from presenting at the Pennsylvania School Librarians’ Association Annual Conference in Hershey, Pa, and I must reinforce that school librarians and academic librarians should be working much more closely than we are currently.
Last year I helped the Pittsburgh Public School District develop its first information literacy “curriculum” in almost 25 years, and our presentation was essentially a tutorial on how to write a K-12 inflolit scope and sequence document. My role in the presentation was, “What the can an academic librarian do to help school librarians?” The crux of this is: we need to work together to create a continuum of IL instruction from kindergarten to graduate school as these are, indeed, life long learning skills. Here are our slides.
HI Dan,
I completely agree. This is a soap-box that I tend to get on and a very sensitive issue to me. I spent 3 years as a school librarian and am now working as an academic librarian. There is a HUGE disconnect between HS and the college/university experience. There is no consistency in what “life long learning skills” these students are learning across the board. This is only made more difficult by the fact that not all school librarians are certified librarians. So, some students are learning about how to find, evaluate, analyze and use information and other students have NO clue and think you can find everything you ever need on Google. I wish I had an aswer. . . working with the school librarians is fine if you can get your foot in the door and actually collaborate with them in some way. It is a shame that often times, it just does not happen. I have an 8 and 11 year old and I am on my kids constantly about good study habbits including, finding information using credible sources. It is amazing what they can pick up. As an academic librarian, I know the challenges they will be facing and as a parent; I want them ahead of the curve.
By: Suzie Roth on May 8, 2008
at 11:00 am