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HOW LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES & MUSEUMS CAN PREPARE FOR THE NEXT "BIG ONE"

9/24/2012

By Jody McPhillips
R.I. Library Report

PROVIDENCE -- When a hurricane is heading for Rhode Island, we all know the drill: tape up the windows, gas up the car, fill the tub with water, and head to the store for bread, milk and candles.

            But what about the state’s irreplaceable cultural resources?
            What must be done to protect Rhode Island’s libraries, archives and museums?
            The state Office of Library and Information Services will hold a workshop on that topic on Wednesday, Oct. 10 from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University, 315 Harborside Boulevard.
               Emergency management experts, librarians and preservationists are invited to “Protecting the Past—Rhode Island” to discuss how to keep collections safe with the cooperation of first responders.
            The morning session will be followed by lunch. Please RSVP by Oct. 3 to project manager Theresa Woodmansee at Theresa.woodmansee@gmail.com or (401) 253-1691.

Digital literacy, so important to the new economy, confounds novices and experts

9/20/2012

      SCITUATE, R.I. – “Digital literacy.”
      It is an evolving academic discipline. It's a catchword that attracts millions in federal grants.
      And, increasingly, it is important to patrons flocking to the free Internet computers in libraries to do supposedly routine errands like applying for unemployment benefits, seeking a new job or contacting the motor vehicle registry
      But digital literacy also is a concept that confounds both computer novices, who are frightened just to hit the “Enter” button on their PC keyboards, as well as technology masters, who are eager to signal “Like” on Facebook the moment a new iPhone is unveiled.
      What’s more, “digital literacy” isn’t all that easy to define.
      This all became clear at a meeting of directors of Rhode Island libraries, organized Sept. 18, 2012 by the state Office of Library and Information Services at the North Scituate Public Library.
      On hand were some of the state’s leading experts:

Dr. Renee Hobbs, founding director of the University of Rhode Island’s new Harrington School of Communication and Media, who is author of books like “Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting and Classroom.”
Stuart Freiman, broadband program director of the state Economic Development Corporation, who is coordinating a major drive in Rhode Island to train people to use computers and the Internet.
Shane Sher, program coordinator at AskRI.org – a state-sponsored Internet and phone information service that helps anyone with a question, from a student wrestling with homework assignments to the car owner seeking repair information.

A Never-ending Learning Curve

DR.RENEE HOBBS of URI's Communication school

      Hobbs’ communication school includes six departments and programs at URI, one of which is the graduate school of library and information studies, a prime training resource for many of the state’s librarians.
        She noted that even librarians, who oversee scores of public access computers, who regularly update library Websites and who help patrons use databases, struggle to stay current with emerging technology.
      “The learning curve is never ending,” Hobbs told the session.
      As a result, in early November the school will sponsor a “Google Hangout” – an Internet forum – about how to keep up with professional literature and discuss “what works and doesn’t work.”
      The following month, a similar session will be held about measuring the effectiveness of the work libraries do in helping patrons use computers and on-line resources, asking questions such as “How do we know we are doing the right thing?” And “What does it mean to be digitally literate?”

The following month, a similar session will discuss the effectiveness of the work libraries do in helping patrons use computers and on-line resources, asking questions such as “How do we know we are doing the right thing?” And “What does it mean to be digitally literate?”

Literacy Training, From the Ground Up

        Freiman, the state economic development agency’s broadband director, said one of his program’s efforts has been to qualify some 80 volunteers to train computer novices at 25 sites across the state, some of them in libraries.
      He encouraged library directors to send staffers to the training sessions, saying libraries are in a unique position to help people become proficient with information technology.
      “You have what nobody else has, and that’s contact with the community,” he told the library directors, adding that training takes a personal touch.
      “The problem with digital literacy,” Freiman said, “is that you can’t use a computer to teach digital literacy, you have to be present; you have to work with somebody; it takes time and patience.”
     There is an enormous gap in the expertise of people comfortable with computers and those new to the experience, Freiman said.

STUART FREIMAN, EDC broadband director

Throughout the United States, 30 percent of adults do not know how to use a computer browser, the software program that accesses information on the Internet.At the same time, it’s increasingly important for everyone to know the digital basics, he said. Rhode Island state government, for example, is shifting more and more services to the Internet, from unemployment benefits to licensing, he said.

A Simple Question, But No Easy Answer

        It was Amy E. Neilson, director of the Exeter Public Library, who raised one of the thorniest questions:
      “What is a layperson’s definition of digital literacy?” Neilson asked. In other words, she said, how do librarians convince their patrons that they have a use for libraries’ troves of on-line databases and other resources.
      Library users will say to her: “ ‘Oh, it’s so nice that you offer this. Oh, Amy, you know this, that’s wonderful,’” Neilson said. “But I can’t translate that into ‘This is what it does for you.’”
      “How do I get other people to use it?” she asked.

"What is a layperson's definition of digital literacy?"

       Hobbs said that the definition for digital literacy is “contested and emerging,” and lately it comes in two forms.
      One way of looking at it, Hobbs said, is that digital literacy is culmination of a continuing series of literacies, starting with conversation during the time of Aristotle, followed by print literacy, then visual literacy and computer literacy; so it’s the sum of what someone now needs to be effective in communication.
      Another way of describing it, Hobbs said, is by listing four categories: the tools and skills required to use digital media, such as operating a computer mouse; critical analysis of digital information; composing and authoring digital communications; and “digital citizenship,” the ethics of modern communication.
      Howard Boksenbaum, chief state library officer, who organized the directors’ meeting, offered a crisp definition: What can someone do with a computer, and how do she or he do it?

Sherlock Holmes & the Mystery of Digital Learning

        Shane Sher, the AskRI.org program coordinator for the Statewide Reference Resource Center, the contract for which was awarded this year by Boksenbaum’s office to the Providence Community Library, which manages the capital city’s nine neighborhood libraries.
      Sher, who said later in an interview that he has trained 12,000 people from ages 9 to 93 in computer basics during the past nine years, told the directors’ meeting that a key to digital literacy is understand what each individual needs from the Internet.
      A starting place is what someone already knows, Sher said: “If you have a kid come in and say, I only like reading comic books, well, they are still reading and they are still literate.”
   Trainers can build on someone’s current skills and interests to move them further on the learning process.

SHANE SHER of AskRI.org

    "The point as far as the literacy thing,” Sher said, “is they want the one thing they want. If it’s a resume, that’s what they want; if it’s Facebook, that’s what they want.”
      One of the steps AskRI.org has taken since the PCL took over the state Resource Center in July, is to make its Facebook site inviting to young users.
      For example, the same week the directors’ conference was taking place, AskRI ran a “Sherlock Holmes Week,” which included an on-line poll about which movie and TV actor has best portrayed the fictional sleuth, while also telling Facebook users about various sources of information about Holmes.
      That program started off with this announcement:

       “Good morning, Holmesians! Today is the first day of Sherlock Holmes Week here at AskRI! Want to brush up on your knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's infamous sleuth? We have loads of scholarly articles just waiting for you on the virtual shelves of EBSCO's Literary Reference Center!”

      The writer of this Library Report article, when he saw the “EBSCO” mention, didn’t know what it meant. So he logged into the AskRI site from his home laptop computer and, at 8:40 p.m., went to the “live chat with a librarian” section and typed in his question.
      The answer came back from AskRI, at 8:41:
      “…a database full of magazine and journal articles.”
        Elementary, my dear Watson.

The Digital Age holds both challenge and promise for Rhode Island libraries, says URI's Renee Hobbs

9/19/2012

DR. RENEE HOBBS, center in red jacket, talks with R.I. library directors. Credit: Jody McPhillips, RI Library report

     By Brian C. Jones
       Rhode Island Library Report

        SCITUATE, R.I. (Sept. 18, 2012) – The director of the University of Rhode Island’s new communications school is challenging librarians to embrace the promise of the computer/ digital revolution, rather than grieve the end of a simpler time when books were libraries’ major currency.
       “As we – meaning librarians – are able to look outward and be really connected, we have lots of opportunity,” said Dr. Renee Hobbs. “And that is going to be the secret, as we move from being book depositories and into being community connectors.”
       Director of URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media, Hobbs spoke today at a three-hour conference of library directors convened by the state Office of Library and Information Services at the North Scituate Public Library.
      Hobbs compared the upheaval caused by digital technology to that nearly 600 years ago when the printing press transformed a mainly oral society into a “book culture.”
      “We are all in the process of reinventing ourselves, because the nature of knowledge is changing,” she said.

DR. HOBBS makes a point

HOBBS IS NOT JUST A MESSENGER. She is likely to be a key player who will prompt many of those changes, both in Rhode Island and nationally.
      A former professor of communications at Temple University, Hobbs created the Harvard Institute on Media Education and came to the Harrington school in January as its founding director.
      The new school is bankrolled by a $5.5 million donation from Richard J. Harrington, a URI graduate and former president of media company Thomson/Reuters. The school will combine six departments: journalism, public relations, film/media, communication studies, writing and rhetoric and the graduate school of library and information studies.
      It’s a controversial concept, linking formerly separate academic programs, upsetting especially to those who fear loss of independence and traditions in their professional specialties.

    THE LIBRARY STUDIES program (of which Hobbs herself is interim director) trains many of the state’s librarians, and Hobbs left little doubt that there will be major changes as she initiates a revised curriculum.
      Librarians will need new skills, Hobbs said, as their institutions, already computer hubs and lenders of electronic books, “reach out and support their communities.”
       “Wouldn’t it be cool if every librarian became an effective public speaker?” Hobbs said. “Every librarian needs public relations skills, because you have to tell your own story – because nobody else will.”
      Hobbs invited suggestions about the training of librarians in the digital age:
      “How might a librarian benefit from opportunity for professional development in the areas of public relations, film media, digital composition? And how might we support the information needs of library information professionals?”

HOWARD BOKSENBAUM, state chief library officer

THE AUDIENCE OF ABOUT 35 did not dispute the scope of the changes underway, but some said diminishing money from government and other sources is hampering their efforts to institute changes.
      Howard Boksenbaum, the state’s chief library officer, whose office arranged the conference, said he didn’t want to sound like a “downer,” but noted the strain on institutions, many in decline.
      “We need to keep up with it,” Boksenbaum said of new technology. “But how do we manage to insert it in the do-more-with-less environment we live in.”
      An audience member put the issue this way:
      “It’s not that we are focused on what we’ve lost. It’s just what we are doing now is not dead. It’s hard to have the resource to add this, (when) we don’t have the resource to do that.”

      HOBBS WAS BOTH both sympathetic and blunt as she listened to the librarians’ concerns.
      Several said that although their libraries offer a powerful array of on-line databases, e-books and other digital resources, even veteran patrons don’t know they are available, despite notices in newsletters and news articles.
      Hobbs said she had no simple answer of how librarians can help a new generation of young computer and digital device users who don’t understand how much help they need.
      A "DIY" (do-it-yourself) generation is used to sitting in front of a computer and trying to figure out how to use new software or equipment, she said.
      While they often can navigate by themselves, they run into real trouble in not understanding how much more they need to know, and a consequence is that potential information technology jobs go unfilled.
      "YOUR PROFESSION IS BUILT on this idea of being available to provide help to people who know that they need help,” Hobbs said. “What happens when you have a whole culture that suddenly thinks they don’t need help? I don’t think anybody’s figure that out.”
      One person complained that when federal grants are outlined seeking proposals for “digital literacy,” libraries are sometimes not named specifically, despite their resources.
      “You’ve nailed a really important thing,” Hobbs said. “One thing is really certain is that you do not own the concept of digital literacy. You do not.”
      Libraries, just like other institutions and professions, have to work together and with other agencies to adapt to the new digital age, she said.
      “We are in the transition phase, where our tendency is to look backward and think about what we’ve lost, instead of like looking outward and seeing what we might gain through partnerships.”
      Working with other others, Hobbs said, has enormous potential: “It should make everyone in the room feel tremendously optimistic about the future.”

NORTH SCITUATE PUBLIC LIBRARY, site of Rhode Island library directors' conference

The Providence Journal's Bob Kerr Interviews Dave Bloss about events in Libya

9/14/2012

EDITOR'S NOTE: The full text of this article was posted here last week. We have removed the text out of concern by our editorial team about use of copyrighted material, and we have replaced it with this summary.
_ Brian C. Jones, Sept. 15, 2012

        Slain U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was well regarded in Libya, Journalist Dave Bloss has told Bob Kerr, the Providence Journal’s top columnist, who interviewed Bloss last week.
        “Honestly, I never heard a bad word about him anywhere the past two months,” Bloss told Kerr. “He felt very comfortable in the country. He was very popular.”
        Kerr wrote in the Sept. 14, 2012 Journal, that Bloss met and liked Stevens, who was killed the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which also took the lives of three other embassy officials.
       Readers of the Rhode Island Library Report already know that Bloss, and his wife, Jody McPhillips, are members of the team of journalists seeking to establish the Library Report as a new, Web-based news organization to cover libraries in the Ocean State.
       Kerr explained how Bloss happened to be in Libya:
      Libya is the latest stop for Bloss who, with his wife, Jody McPhillips, has led a very interesting life since leaving the Journal more than a dozen years ago. Dave was sports editor here, Jody one of our very best reporters. They began their international trek with jobs as editors at Cambodia Daily, a bilingual paper in Phnom Penh. In the years since, they have worked with journalists, taught journalism, and helped set up journalism schools in Republic of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, East Timor and India.

Dave Bloss

Bob Kerr

   To give Kerr a sense of the changes in Libya since the overthrow of the Gadhafi government, Bloss told him about an unusual birthday party he attended the previous week in an “Elvis-like mansion in Tripoli.”
   “It seemed to have 20 bathrooms. Since the revolution, it seems like a lot of people can just ask for the keys, open it up, and use it for celebrations,” Bloss told Kerr, who wrote:
    A tour of the house revealed a pool table that was warping because it was next to a sauna. It was something to laugh at, a silly symbol of privileged overindulgence. But the house was a grim reminder of what used to be in Libya. It had belonged to one of Moammar Gadhafi’s daughters, who is now in Algeria. She lost two sons during the Libyan revolution.

       Kerr asked Bloss about the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens.
       “My reaction to that attack? — not totally surprised,” said Bloss. “As has been widely reported, everyone has access of weapons, all the way up to RPGs. So the firepower is always there.
       “For people who benefited most when Gadhafi held power for 42 years, it’s been a fast drop to the bottom of the pile since his death. There’s also a number of Gadhafi supporters who lost close family in the NATO air strikes. The motives for revenge are strong, and the U.S. is a visible target.”
        In the hours since the attacks, there have been the predictable, simple-minded calls to go in there and let loose the full fury of our military might.
       “The thing with Americans is, we always want an enemy to be a country,” said Bloss. “But you can’t be condemning Libya because of this. Almost every Libyan is against what happened.”

    The full column can be read on the Journal’s subscription Website, www.providencejournal.com Free access to archived Providence Journal articles is available through the Internet to patrons of Rhode Island libraries. Bob Kerr's e-mail address is: bkerr@providencejournal.com and his office phone is (401) 277-7252

HOW LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES & MUSEUMS CAN PREPARE FOR THE NEXT "BIG ONE"

Digital literacy, so important to the new economy, confounds novices and experts

"What is a layperson's definition of digital literacy?"

The Digital Age holds both challenge and promise for Rhode Island libraries, says URI's Renee Hobbs

The Providence Journal's Bob Kerr Interviews Dave Bloss about events in Libya

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