Monthly Archives: July 2021

Selecting format: hardcopy or ebook

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Myrberg and Wiberg (2015) suggest that ebooks and print books both have advantages and disadvantages depending on the task, the preferences of the user and the technology used to access them. They suggest that readers who prefer print books, once they get used to ebooks, use them just as efficiently, but also suggest that ebooks that are born digital – ie were designed for electronic use and take advantage of the various tools such as integrated dictionaries, placing questions next to the relevant parts of the text etc, are superior to ebooks that have been converted from print to digital media with minimal changes or utilisation of the ereader’s facilities. Meanwhile, Du Temple (2020) suggests that some of the key advantages of ebooks are the anonymity of the reader – they can be accessed privately without peers or teachers knowing what has been selected – and their accessibility – they can be accessed at any time of the day or night and in almost any location. This, she argues means that teens, particularly, are more likely to explore and seek help for social-emotional or mental health issues they may be dealing with. Gray (2017) raises issues around equity of access – ebooks are only available to students whose families can afford to buy them an ereader or tablet/phone. He also discusses the problem of cross-platform access – some resources are only available on certain devices. This problem has largely been solved by apps such as Libby which allow readers to access materials from subscribed libraries regardless of the platform they use.  There are also issues around whether the library is spending its limited budget acquiring titles permanently in the collection, or just providing access for a time. What happens if that access is no longer able to be included in the annual budget?

What, then, are the implications for my primary school library? Currently my library does not provide access to any ebooks or audiobooks at all. Should they be added to the collection and in what form? I believe that both hard and softcopies are useful to different people in different ways and the ideal scenario would see all titles available in both formats. Of course, budgets do not allow for this. Perhaps this is an opportunity for student-led selection. I don’t believe that there will ever be an excuse to do away entirely with the print collection, however, I do think that ebooks could play an important part in areas of the collection that are quickly outdated such as technology, international politics and scientific advancements. Many reference materials might be included in the electronic collection, some, such as encyclopedias, in place of print copies and some, such as dictionaries and thesauruses, in addition to it. This is always assuming that the teacher librarian has included in the selection criteria for the digital materials the frequency of update available for the ebook and the pattern this takes. If a digital book automatically provides access to the most recent update when accessed by a student, this is ideal. If on the otherhand, a digital file must be checked regularly for updates and these downloaded individually, this needs to be factored in to the library staff workflow and is, from a practical perspective, unlikely to be possible.

One must consider whether it is necessary or desirable for fiction and non-fiction, and indeed junior fiction titles to be included in the digital collection. Many junior students at our school do not have the technology skills to access ebooks readily, but many older students seem much happier to read fiction than non-fiction in electronic format. I suspect that this is because linear reading styles typical of fiction books are more easily navigated on an ereader than the dip in and out style of non-fiction texts.

Another spanner in the works is the recent extraordinary times we find ourselves in. During lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic, students are not able to access any of our library titles. If they were available in a digital collection, at least they could get some use out of them. As it is, though, the print collection sits on shelves in a deserted building, gathering dust.

 

Du Temple, T, (2020). The positive potential of ebooks within school libraries. SCIS Connections, (113). https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-113/the-positive-potential-of-ebooks-within-school-libraries
Gray, M. (2017). Ebooks: To subscribe, or not to subscribe? SCIS Connections (101). https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-101/ebooks-to-subscribe-or-not-to-subscribe
Myrberg, C., & Wiberg, N. (2015). Screen vs. paper: what is the difference for reading and learning?. Insights, 28(2), 49–54. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.236

Website evaluation tools

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Tonight I read a number of articles in Module 2.3 about teaching students and teachers the importance of and the skills of website evaluation. A number of models were presented, including Shrock’s (2009) 5Ws, Duke’s (2016) WWWDOT test, and the CRAP test, presented by Pru Mitchell (2017). I found the 5Ws to be a comprehensive guide that covers all the necessary elements, but I fear that the mnemonic may not be as memorable as one might wish in this context, after all who, what, where, when, how and why are used in other contexts too, possibly leading to confusion for younger students. The CRAP test I have found is quite memorable for my students. The WWWDOT method I had not read about before. I do not find this an easy model to use or mnemonic to remember. Duke (2016) relates that only a small percentage of students in her study were able to independently implement this test and I can see why.

The models presented above all cover roughly the same ground, just using slightly different language. It is up to the teacher librarian to select which model is most memorable and impactful for their particular cohort of students. Oddone (2016), on the other hand, presents some online tools that were completely new to me. These are tools I do not think are usually necessary for primary aged students, but would be very useful to high school and university students and the population at large. They are tools that I want to remember and return to at another time for further investigation and I highly recommend this article for other teacher librarians.

 

Duke, N. K. (2016). Evaluating websites as information sources. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/evaluating-websites-as-information-sources-nell-k-duke
Mitchell, P. (2017, January 15). Critical thinking tool – the CRAP test. Teacher. https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/critical-thinking-tools-the-crap-test
Oddone, K. (2016).  Information and critical literacy on the web. SCIS Connections, (96). https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-96/information-and-critical-literacy-on-the-web
Schrock. K. (2009). The 5W’s of website evaluation. http://www.schrockguide.net/uploads/3/9/2/2/392267/5ws.pdf

Website Evaluation Criteria

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Evaluating the quality of information presented on a website is a skill targeted by teacher librarians in their information literacy programs, starting from the early years. As students develop the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, begin to be able to identify the purpose of an article and learn to find and use information, it becomes increasingly important that they learn to evaluate the content they encounter. In a primary school setting, teacher librarians need a model for evaluation of content that is simple enough for students to remember and implement, but also effective. Below are some thoughts on what such a model could look like.

 

C Current/complete Is the date of publication shown? (not just today’s date)
Is the date recent?
Have big changes happened since the article was written?
Does the article show the whole picture?
L Language Is there emotive language?
Is there exaggeration or sweeping statements?
Is technical language used to help or hinder?
A Author Is the author identified?
Is the publisher identified?
Is the sponsor identified?
Can you contact the author for clarification?
P Proof Are facts backed up with trusted sources?
Are claims supported by evidence?
Are other perspectives acknowledged?
Do other articles agree or disagree?
Are further readings linked?
Do other trusted sources link to this article?
Do links work?

 

Technical criteria

In addition to criteria considered by students in evaluating online content, there are technical considerations for teacher librarians looking to recommend online resources to the school community. Teacher librarians should consider accessibility requirements as well as layout, usability, relevance to the curriculum, reading and cognitive level, balance between text and images and appropriateness to the context.

However, some technical aspects such as downloading speed, avoidance of Flash, responsiveness, adaptability to different browsers, whether information is held behind paywalls or require user accounts to view, should be considered. Cumbrowski (2018) suggests many other issues for consideration, however, many of these aspects are beyond the needs of most teacher librarians and are more relevant for web developers looking to have their sites indexed more readily by search engines.

Cumbrowski, C. (2018, March 22). 50 questions to evaluate the quality of your website. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/evaluate-website-quality/233555/#close

ETL501 – Module 2.1 – print vs digital reference materials

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In her article Why libraries should retain a core print reference collection (Lederer, 2016), Lederer makes several points regarding the value of print reference materials. Many of her points relate to convenience and the longevity of print reference resources. How to these points relate to the primary school context? In the usual course of events, there are very few primary students learning only online and needing access to online only resources (though during the current pandemic, this is different) and so they usually have access to the print collection as easily or more easily than the online collection. Primary students, especially in the junior years may have difficulty being able to log in to the computer at all, let alone navigate to and through an online environment.

The level of detail and currency required for curriculum activities is less demanding than in Lederer’s academic library context. Many primary students who are still developing literacy and computer skills may have a good deal of difficulty accessing digital reference materials independently. Often they cannot read the results they find, if they manage to find the articles, though if the source uses assistive technology such as immersive readers, audio and video content, they can access the information more readily. Primary students require more generalised resources with much lower reading levels and more reliance on visual content, yet they are still learning to interpret that visual content. Having the teacher librarian available to conduct regular lessons on how to access and use reference materials is vital.  Also, seeing the print resources on the shelf during lunchtime or independent reading times means many students choose to explore these texts by flipping through, not looking for specific information but becoming familiar with the form and composition of the text.

Digital resources are much more difficult to navigate and explore when the user doesn’t have a specific question in mind. Primary students may not have any basic understandings of topics they are asked to investigate, whereas students in a high school or academic library usually have at least some context or background knowledge around what they are investigating. Reference materials are perfect for users who need to gain a general understanding of the their topic.

Lederer, N. (2016). Why libraries should retain a core print reference collection. The Reference Librarian, 57(4), 307-322. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763877.2016.1145093

WTL501 – Module 2.1 – Reference Materials

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Farmer (2014) provides a guide to the development of the reference collection in American schools. It is clear that the information is specifically targeted towards American schools, however it is still relevant to Australian school librarians. Farmer suggests that librarians should be careful to select materials that contain American spellings and measurements, which is also true of Australian librarians, though, of course, including English spellings and decimal measurements.
Farmer points out the necessity of keeping the collection current and the fact that many reference titles are quickly out-of-date. Many school libraries do not have the funds to be updating these volumes every year, if, in fact a print update is available. While it is important to provide current reference materials, this is not an indication that older versions are not useful in a school for purposes other than locating factual information. Primary school libraries provide materials used to teach students about textual features such as indexes, contents pages, bibliographies, directories etc and this does not always require up-to-the-minute accuracy and currency, though it would be an added bonus if this was also the case. This has to be balanced against the competing needs of other curriculum areas the budget must cover. Recently in my school library we attempted to purchase class sets of updated atlases of the world. The most up-to-date edition we could buy in print form was from 2009 and contains suggestions to readers that they consult the online version for updates. We decided to purchase them anyway as it is deemed important to provide class sets of print copies for the purpose of teaching map-reading skills as well as textual features of atlases and reference books more generally.
Farmer suggests that it is important to consider hardware and software requirements when selecting digital reference materials. While this is certainly a concern, it is one that needs to be addressed not only from the point of view of the library computers, but also the universal usage by library users at home who may be using any number of different operating systems, old or new hardware with varying amounts of processing oe display power. In recent times, many reference material publishers have made their products available on a number of platforms and in a variety of formats such as websites, mobile or responsive websites, apps, cloud-based streaming services etc, that do not necessarily rely on the user having the most up-to-date technology available. This is important for patrons accessing content remotely, but also means that these services are in direct competition for student attention with sites such as Wikipedia, meaning that the educational programs offered by the library need to be on point in this regard.
In addition to the resources listed by Farmer and Alderman (2014), Australian school libraries might consider providing syllabus documents and professional readings collections in the teachers’ reference collection and conversion charts of common measurements and spelling differences between traditional English and American English. They might consider language references for First Nations languages and cultural materials.
A thought occurs that, as print-based materials are out-dated so quickly, digital resources should have an advantage. Perhaps signage and advertisements for these digital materials should be displayed in the reference area of the library. Perhaps teacher librarians should be including specific lessons about how these materials can and should be used in the library program, especially in primary schools where more students are likely to experience regular contact with the library through the RFF program.
Farmer, L. S. J. (2014). Introduction to reference and information services in today’s school library. Rowman & Littlefield.
Alderman, J. (2014). What is a reference collection? LIS1001 Beginning Library Information Systems & Strategies. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=bliss