The Cushing discussion continues

Many thanks to Shannon Acedo, Department Head of Library and Information Technology at the Harvard-Westlake Upper School, for her thoughtful comments to my blog post Cushing: a new model for libraries. I contacted Shannon and she has generously given me permission to re-post her comments.

Thanks for providing the opportunity to revisit “The Cushing Effect” after things have settled down a bit. Your blogpost has engendered a lively discussion among independent school librarians.

Cushing has moved away from a ‘Collection Maintenance Philosophy’. Personally, I’m a firm believer in the ‘Collection Development Philosophy’, and the primary value of our collection (both print and digital) is that it is carefully crafted to support the curriculum at our school. We weed old materials, purchase new materials (print and digital), and work closely with teachers to make sure we have what our students need. Format is not an issue; content is.

Cushing’s print art books are kept because they are hard to get in digital format; in spite of this perceived value in print materials there is no intent on maintaining that collection or adding to it. This must eventually lead to a gap in resources, as the art world is decidedly not static. If a particular area is not easily duplicated in electronic format, doesn’t that emphasize the need for a complete collection consisting of print AND digital resources?

All the work our students do is to prepare them for their future lives, with an immediate goal of success in college. We need to be aware of the resources at the colleges and universities our students will attend and make sure we prepare them to navigate those resources productively. We also must support our students as they do their work here on campus, and our teachers require a variety of different resources for this purpose. We work hard to make sure it is ALL available.

I do love the information literacy curriculum as presented by Cushing—indeed I’m jealous. We are working on defining our 6-year information literacy program, moving ahead a bit at a time, but I’m inspired by what they are doing at the Fisher-Watkins library.

Conclusions
• The library at Cushing is neither a pariah nor (imho) a powerhouse—it’s a library with its own strengths and weaknesses
• There are aspects of the space and program at Cushing that I can benefit from
• The value of a library collection is based on its content and not on its format; format is important only as it impacts access
• One of our most important roles in the Independent School world is to prepare our students for success in college; to do so we must teach them how to use libraries like the ones they will see in college.

Thanks again for inspiring a lively debate on a very timely topic.

Thank you, Shannon, for your wonderful contribution to this ongoing discussion.

Photo credit:
via Wylio
Amazon Kindle eBook Reader

Cushing: A new model for libraries in the digital age

Two years ago Cushing Academy's  Fisher-Watkins Library was at the center of a firestorm. The radical and sudden decision to throw out their library books  polarized school librarians on everything from their philosophy on reading, to student rights, to process, to the fundamental question of whether a space without books had the right to call itself a library. I recently had the unique and wonderful opportunity to visit Cushing, tour their physical space, learn about the changes, explore their virtual space, and gain a greater understanding of the pedagogy behind their evolution. From pariah to powerhouse, the "bookless library" has a lot to teach us, and offers much to ponder.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said headmaster James Tracy. (Mark Wilson for The Boston Globe)

As an early supporter of Cushing I am happy to share my notes, impressions and the big take-away's. Please note that my notes are just that - quick notations. Any errors or misrepresentations are mine alone. I urge those interested in learning more to investigate the Fisher-Watkins portal and email Director Tom Corbett directly. He is a great guy seeking input and would welcome feedback on the site to continue its ongoing development.

Important contact information:

• Cushing Academy
• Fisher-Watkins web portal
• Approximately 450 students, private boarding school
• Facts at a Glance

MISSION
The Fisher-Watkins Library has two main purposes:

1. To promote reading and make sure it survives in a digital environment
2. To promote research and information literacy in the digital age

ARRIVAL -  IMPRESSIONS
Upon entering the Fisher-Watkins Library one is struck by the beauty and elegance of the space. It is an architect designed space, built below grade. Upon entering the original 1865 red brick structure you go down a level. Walking a short distance lit by ground level skylights, you go down again. The path is filled with natural light, lined with student work, class gifts and floor-to-ceiling full color glossy, foam core mounted wall displays of speakers ranging from poet laureate Robert Pinskey to Ishamel Beah.

Descending down to the library is a light filled experience. Bow shaped, it looks out onto a grass semi-circle lawn with treetops in the distance. It may be below grade, but on the cold and overcast New England day we visited (12.3.10) it was filled with light. Students are scattered throughout studying by themselves or in small groups. There are a few teachers working independently or conferencing with students. The vibe is relaxed and scholarly. And there are some books.

My visit to Cushing Academy was coordinated by our wonderful local educational collaborative of 22 Boston area schools, EDCO.  Fisher-Watkins librarians greeted us and we were ushered to the cafe where we were treated to our choice of coffees and teas. It is professionally and cheerfully staffed, and well stocked with muffins, yogurts and other tidy snacks.

 I was immediately struck by the diverse areas and seating arrangements. Great chairs with swivel desktops, study carrels with sea glass green dividers, silent study areas, group study areas, and at each end of the library are two open classroom areas with touch screen white boards.

I saw students working in collaborative groups, studying individually, and students meeting with teachers. The vibe was relaxed, focused and scholarly. It wasn't quiet, but it the noise didn't distract from the academic feel. The space was filled with student art and three flat screen displays; one with student news, one with student productions, and one with CNN. Very cool.

In this photo you can see down one half of the library. What is now open space dotted with diverse seating and group work areas was formerly low book stacks. The circulation desk was moved from what was once the cafe area and is now open and centrally located in the library. This shift has made the library staff is much more accessible.

There is a designated silent study area, but for those students who want to sit in the main space Fisher-Watkins has 10 Bose noise canceling headsets.  These are very popular and are always checked out during evening hours.

The Faculty Lounge is located at one end of the library and is very popular with staff. Free coffee from cafe staff keep teachers coming to socialize, meet with students, and moving through the space, creating opportunities to talk with the librarians.

There is a wonderful energy to the space.

COLLECTION

Fisher-Watkins did not throw out all their books. What they kept and why:

• Art books because they are not as readily available in digital format. They will not be purchasing additional art books in future.
• Donated nonfiction books because they represent an investment by the Cushing community. The nonfiction collection and reference collections are interfiled. No future print purchases are planned.
• Fiction, YA fiction and short story collections were deeply weeded and the remaining high interest titles were kept. There will be no future purchase or collection development. It is now an on demand collection.

The Kindles
Collection development is based on a patron request model. An ebook is  purchased because someone wants to read it. New titles are promoted via a digital display in the library and on the library website.

The Kindles are cataloged and checked out to students who can keep them for as long as they want.  Of their 99 Kindles, 85 were checked out on the day of our visit. At this time they don't keep track of which title is on which Kindle. Each purchased title comes with six licenses. Once six copies have been loaded onto six different Kindles the license has been fully allocated. If there is a seventh request for a title they buy an additional copy, which translates as six additional licenses.

Amazon Kindle titles are cataloged using print Marc records and edited to reflect it is an e version.

When they started two years ago the process was very confusing but now works well for staff and students.

A few Kindles (maybe five) have come back with damaged screens but were covered by warranty.
Faculty and curriculum planning has increased but like all school libraries it continues to be an area  they would like to see grow. Stats indicate database usage is up. Space is used more by students than before.

Other factoids:

Building DVD collection for curriculum as well as personal enjoyment.

Kept print magazines for a browsing collection.

Nonfiction collection is purely donated books. About 5000 books left are left in the print collection, 2000 nonfiction. Makes it a funny, eclectic print collection.

Reference is purely digital database and e-reference. Paper reference has been inter-shelved an is allowed to circulate.

CURRICULUM

In addition to regular information literacy classes taught to support research activities, Connections is a required class for all freshmen and new students. It is a year long course that covers life and study skills, and Tom Corbett takes a semester which serves as library orientation. Students are trained in a core list of tech tools all students and teachers are expected to use, digital tools, information skills, ethics of social media, copyright. Tom teaches digital literacy skills, gets their computers set up correctly and teaches them to navigate digital information environment of school.

There are also regular library orientation classes in the open classrooms at either end of the library.

VIRTUAL LIBRARY

Digital services are the main front door for delivering support to students where they need, it when they need it, where they live. There is an embedded Illuminate widget on each page for students to text a request for help, questions, whatever. All staff members receive a notification when a student is requesting support and will reply up until 10pm. Sometimes later if a staff member is online when a question is posted.

The school's nonfiction collection is fundamentally entirely online. In addition to databases and ebook purchases from Gale, academic content is purchased through eBook Library (eBL), an Australian group working almost exclusively at the university level - until now. Cushing is their first high school account in the United States. eBL allows the patron to either "buy" a book which provides the patron with access for an entire year, or check it out as a loan. Books can be previewed for five minutes and then the school account will be charged. The cost for borrowing is 1% of the retail price. There is an initial fee to set up the platform. This is new for Fisher-Watkins and they are still in the process of publicizing it with teachers.

This is another example of a patron request collection model. With eBL students have access to over 150,000 high quality university press titles. Resources are paid for as they are used. Purchasing is not just in case, but as needed. There are no costs associated with processing, shelving or, eventually, with weeding. Libraries need to look more closely at this model.

This is the core of the Fisher-Watkins philosophy. The library is not the place students and faculty go to get material. It is the place they go to learn how to effectively search digital resources to find what they need, and it is an environment designed for studious inquiry and work. An example of this philosophy can be seen in a screen shot from their Kindle page. Students are guided to Amazon, the biggest print and digital book vendor in the world, as their personal library.

The Web Site

The philosophy of the website is really important.

The Fisher-Watkins website was created using Drupal, an open source content management platform. This web interface merges the catalog and databases using a federated search called Deep Web Technologies. They dropped their ILS (integrated library system) catalog!

Why? OPACS are transaction focused. Fisher-Watkins decided they needed a new approach that was not focused on managing inventory. Their platform is designed to focus on patron support. They have moved away from a collection maintenance philosophy. The catalog is viewed as a starting point to launching the student on a quest to find what is needed.

A little more on DeepWeb. This federated search engine was developed and is used  by Stanford University, and they have picked up a number of additional "big users." This is their first high school project. It pulls results from all the databases and digital resources, evaluates them and displays returns based on a ranking algorithm. A sidebar provides metadata for a richer search experience that helps develop skills in evaluating returns.  This is a very Google-like search experience.

The Fisher-Watkins Drupal platform is totally customized and the goal is to make the template available to other libraries. It is still being developed.

The Catalog
Catalogers would have a heart attack over the thinness of the records. No tracings! Basic genre tags. The "catalog" supports students in exploring their wants/needs, and purchasing it on the spot. The library is a gateway to global digital content, paid for by the school.

The Budget

1. Approximately  $50,000 for materials, $20-30 for databases and ebooks. 
2. Former book budget was rolled into digital content, got a small bump for additional ebook purchases. 
3. Kindles purchased with capital funds, not budget. 
4. $30-35,000 now for digital content. 

DISCUSSION
After our tour our group shared a wonderful lunch, and a fascinating and far reaching discussion.

One question was "If you had to do it over again what would you not do?" Tom said it would have been helpful to clarify how they were organizing reading and maybe minimize the initial bad press. However it really got the conversation going. Also, he wouldn't have gone so thoroughly digital all at once, and maybe would have rolled it out more slowly.

Devices
Tom Likes the iPad with Kindle app. It can be distracting having everything available, but this is what we have to teach our students.

My time at the Fisher-Watkins Library was one of the most powerful professional development experiences of my career. As a private school Cushing has more latitude than is possible in the public school sector. What they are exploring is print information evolving in a digital world of what seems like ubiquitous access. They are providing curated access to digital content for academic inquiry and personal reading. They are scaffolding students in developing the critical thinking and technology skills necessary to navigate this environment. They are changing the fundamental model of school libraries.

As I continue to evaluate our curriculum, our collection, our service model and our web presence the lessons I learned at Fisher-Watkins will guide me.

My sincere thanks to Director Tom Corbett, Head Librarian Liz Vezina, and library staff members
Karen Lemieux, Susan Larkin and Jill Henry. The fortitude of the staff during a time of radical change must be commended. A personal thank you for your warm hospitality and the thoughtful time you took with our group.

Book bigot

On Friday, during the last block of the day, I was walking around, straightening chairs, with my iPad tucked under my arm. A group of students, seated in a circle in our comfy chairs, asked about the iPad and if they could play with it a bit. I said sure, handed it over, and after about 10 minutes cycled back to see what they thought.

We talked about gaming, some of the apps, and then about what it was like to "really" read digitally. Like a novel. Like, real reading, not school reading. (Hmm. That was an interesting comment.) I took the opportunity to introduce my favorite topic at the moment, ePub. I showed them the conference notes that I had transformed into an ebook and uploaded to iBook. We looked at the text to speech and other accessibility features, notes and bookmarking, and talked about how teachers could create their own digital textbooks using material they had already created. It was a great discussion.

And then one of the boys asked "But Mrs. Cicchetti, won't you miss books?" He held up a worn paperback he had been reading, flipped the pages against his cheek, and said "I'd miss doing this. I'd miss holding it in my hands like this."

It was an interesting moment. He sounded like many people my age who wax on about their attachment to the physical book. I wondered, at that moment, if my bias toward digital text wasn't, perhaps, a form of bigotry against the traditional book. Am I a book bigot? 

Or have I taken on the role of digital crusader because it takes that degree of energy and focus to shift the entrenched cult of THE BOOK? 

This article from The Guardian made me think about the conversation today.
Is the ebook the new hardback? | Books | guardian.co.uk

"As e-readers move towards the mainstream, publishers' increasing interest in web-first publishing could leave luddites waiting up to six months longer than the cool kids to read their favourite author's latest novel."

Web-first publishing, the well documented rise in eBook and ereader sales and the ready access to free and accessible (text-to-speech, etc.) books all mean the emotional connection to THE BOOK might be holding this student back. 

I am so excited about our Kindle pilot. I am so energized about ePub and the implications for learning and providing students with the skills to access quality content that is becoming more ubiquitous by the day.

This book bigot is, indeed, on a crusade. I won't be ripping books out of the hands of children, but I look forward to the day when I can put an e-reader in their other hand and guarantee their understanding and skills in this evolving literacy landscape.

Day 6

NaNoWriMo

Game changer

It isn't about the device. I am lucky enough to have both a Kindle and an iPad. They are synched which makes digital reading easy and a joy. Truth be told though, I was a little frustrated. The iPad still felt more like a consumption device.


At the MassCUE Conference last week I went to a session on the iPad. I knew it was possible to get free ePub books for the iPad, but I still wasn't sold on its role in schools. I walked out of the session room a convert. 


Why? Because of ePub.  After a 1 hour session I was able to convert my conference notes into an ebook and by synching with my laptop iTunes account, download a beautiful ebook rich with links and embedded video. It was easy, intuitive and fast.


Think of the ramifications! Curriculum that is currently paper based can be copy/pasted into an ebook and pushed out through a district network as an alternate textbook. Teachers can collaborate and keep materials updated with all the ease of simple word processing.


The iPad, or whatever the digital reading device turns out to be, is a pipeline for delivering teacher created content to students. Content that has text to speech and other accessibility features built right into the format.


What a great way to showcase student work. This has fascinating implications for student publishing. Our student literary magazine could be published this way, and expanded to include rich media resources. These are dynamic skills for Humanities students.


This is something I can champion, promote, and support through professional development. We are nowhere near ready for an initiative like this, but seeing what is possible will help us prepare for this future, which isn't too far off.


At this stage in the game you need to use Pages, which is a Mac word processing platform. Things are evolving so quickly that very soon it won't matter if you are Mac or Windows based. The important thing is talking about it and getting tech directors, administrators and teachers to see the potential. Laying the groundwork for rolling out the capacity for digital publishing in the next couple if years is important work, and has jumped to the top of my planning.


ePub Best Practices





























Day 6 NaNoWriMo
(Not writing a novel. Using this as a prompt to blog daily for a month.)


Photo Credit:
Flickr Creative Commons
eBook Readers Galore

By librarymanMichael Porter

Jumping into new waters with floaties

We are in the process of ordering six Kindles. Not because we are going to throw out our books. Not because I believe Kindle is necessarily the way to go. Nobody can make that call at this point in time.

We are purchasing Kindles for two specific reasons:

1. To play in the digital device waters. To learn how to swim. How do we manage the titles? What is the impact on staff? How will we integrate this into our catalog and circulation system? How will our students respond? What does purchasing look like?
2. We have started a YA Galley Reading Group. Students can access digital YA galleys from NetGalley and respond on our newly minted YA Galley Group blog. Students are reviewing galleys and will be recommending titles for purchase. (The details of this incredibly exciting program will be coming.) There is a lot of discussion about galleys going paperless. Early reviewers will get digital copies, and by laying the groundwork now and getting Kindles into their hands our students will be well poised to jump into the digital water.

 There is no doubt in my mind we are on the right track. Take a look at this robust best seller reading list:
Most Downloaded Audiobooks and eBooks from the Library

Reading digitally requires us to re-think our definition of reading. There are new skills involved in this new world of reading, and school librarians need to be there to lead and teach our faculty and students. The accessibility features for people with reading disabilities are so exciting that we are morally obligated to do everything in our power to advocate for funding to provide digital reading devices for our students.

 It makes me think of one of my all time favorite school library quotes:

"In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim."
— Linton Weeks

Which brings us to the best Kindle "floatie" of them all! Thanks to Buffy Hamilton for sharing her process. Talk about a how-to manual! Buffy's blog The Unquiet Librarian must be considered required reading. Her recent post On the Eve of our Kindle Pilot made me clap my hands and dance a jig!

I am so excited about this new era for our school library, and will be sharing our process, our mistakes, and our successes.

Day 2 NaNoWriMo
(Not writing a novel. Using this as a prompt to blog daily for a month.)

Photo Credit:
Flickr Creative Commons 
The official start of swimming season has begun!

By rachel.plowman 

May 31, 2010

The Future of the Book

I can tell you the precise moment when I fell in love with reading, and with books. When my Mom read Are you my mother? by P.D. Eastman to me for the first time, she read the line "You are not my mother! You are a SNORT!", but she said "snort" more like "shhhhnort!" I almost fell off my single Sears bed with the sensible coverlet and hospital corners, in peals of giggles.

Since I learned to read my nose has been firmly stuck in a book. Yet I am not worried about the future of "the book." Paper has served us well for quite a long time, and isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

The "future" of the book is what excites me. The possibilities of engaging with the written word, the transformed thought, the flight of imagination, in new ways.

As I talk with our students it is clear that, while they are digital natives, many are still firmly in the camp of the traditional book. Almost uniformly they state they would prefer digital alternatives to text books, but for personal reading, many still want the book in hand. One student talked about the privacy of disappearing into a narrative on the written page, which is a sentiment I have heard from colleagues. And yet this student had never experienced an e-reader, so his opinion is uninformed.

This is one of the reasons we will be grant writing for a variety of digital readers in the next month. I sure hope we are awarded because I look forward to sharing our process. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I found this in my neglected RSS feed. Worth the 4+ minutes. Especially the section when they refer to authority and information. But that is a different kettle of fish entirely!



The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

iNTEGRATION, baby!

Put an "i" in front of it and there I am, sprinting to our Mac Store. (That is me with the red umbrella - naw, it isn't.)  It is the only time I get exercise.


i need an intervention (get it?). There is, however, method to my, ummm, madness.

As I play with my MacBook, iPhone4, iPad and Kindle, and also juggle my stack of summer reading books and professional journals, the real point of it all is trying to understand how it functions together. I am looking for perfect integration across devices (digital and analog) to mainstream my learning needs, my teaching needs, and my professional needs. Tech lust aside, it is about efficiency.

My RSS feed was particularly abundant today, and among the treasures was Top Ten iPad Apps for Librarians | Information Tyrannosaur.  Please, open a new tab and check it out. When you finish come back here. I'll wait....

Good stuff, right? I already had a number of the suggested (excellent) apps and checked out all the others. After playing around with DropBox (free) I added it to all my devices. I'm going to evaluate and compare it to GoogleDocs, Diigo and Evernote. Finding the most efficient, web-based integration tool is, to my mind, the Holy Grail for school librarians right now.

Observations:

• iPad - I can't edit docs easily. Great reading functionality, but I keep tap, tap, tapping at the screen waiting for the keyboard to pop up. It will come with time and updates, but I really need it and want it now.
• iPhone4 - This is my first iPhone, and I got it because my husband was appalled that I wanted a new digital camera. He said ours was fine and I replied, in dulcet tones "NO IT ISN'T!!!!" Snakes may have shot out of my head. He responded with specs for the new iPhone camera and...he had a point! I lovelovelove the iPhone camera because of the amazing integration. 
• iMovie - This $4.99 app is flat out amazing. I tested it out on the 4th of July, which is epic in Boston. Editing was intuitive and painless, but moving it off the camera was frustrating. I videoed my nephew and wasn't comfortable uploading to YouTube, and the email options had size restrictions. I need to play some more to figure this piece out. Uploading to DropBox or Vimeo would be perfect, but either the functionality - or me - just aren't there yet.
• I'd also love to know if it is possible to upload photos and video directly to my blog or other web-based platform. Again, I have to figure this out.
• By the way, the-most-patient-man-in-the-world also found me an iPhone case that has a little pocket big enough for a drivers license and a credit card. Really and truly I grab my phone and walk out the door. Hopefully the next iteration will have a side pouch for Chapstick. Then the world will be perfect.
• Note of interest - my previous phone was a little brick we got on eBay. It was a phone with texting, and that was it, and that was fine. When we got it the texting was pre-set to Portugese because it came from Brazil. The first time I texted I thought I had had a stroke and lost the language section of my brain. But I digress...
• Kindle - Really great functionality for sharing across devices, if you are willing to play with the settings. However the proprietorship will ultimately prove to be too restrictive. Ergonimically I just love reading on the Kindle.

At the end of the day (epically rainy in the Boston area today) what I am looking for is a triangulation of functionality. Our students and teachers need web-based platforms that will function irrespective of device. They need a portable device that will synch accounts while simultaneously allow for collaboration and editing on the live web.

We are getting there, and devices and platforms are evolving by the minute. Playing, testing, reading about it all is more fun than I ever imagined.

I'm so glad it rained today! I stayed in and played.

Photo credit:
(Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff)

Laugh it up, New Yorker

I know you have to power down your Kindle along with other electronic devices during take off and landing. You know what? I don't care! 

During a recent trip to Japan (chaperone for the Concert Band - more on that later) I packed as lightly as possible for the 10 day trip, but had a massive suitcase stuffed with technology to record, blog, video, and digitally capture the whole shebang.

Perhaps the most crucial bit of tech I brought along was the Kindle in my carry on. I had it loaded, and in the course of the flights, bus trips, jet lag induced insomnia and down time in rehearsal halls, I made my way through old classics by Edith Wharton, Henry James, and even Shogun by James Clavell.  It would have been physically impossible to lug that many books. So make fun of us Kindle readers all you want, New Yorker. Me? I'm just looking for a place to plug in my charger.

From the New Yorker:
"In preparation for landing, please turn off your books."