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Kingston Library

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I am lucky enough to have secured a professional placement for ETL527 in a regional public library. On my way down to Cooma today I had the opportunity to kill some time by visiting the public library in Kingston, ACT. It is a different affair to what I am used to in a public library: a single shop front lined on both sides with tall shelves with low browsing boxes and ottoman seating between. In the children’s section, there is an abundance of front facing shelving that seems to be monitored closely by the 3 staff members. Practically as soon as a book is taken down from the shelf, another is put in its place. This seems a mixed idea. On the one hand, the shelves always look tidy, appealing and well organised (full looking and in rainbow stripes). Ideal for browsing and very appealing to children. Perfect when the patron is looking to be inspired. However, if a patron was looking for something particular, it would be quite difficult to find. I expect this indicates that most of the junior collection users are not looking to read something particular, but come to be inspired to read – to find literature appealing and interesting. There is a strong shopping vibe here. Patrons borrow impulsively. I have taken a book down to browse. It was replaced swiftly and now I can’t see where the rest of the collection is to reshelve it. It is clear that it would be unusual here for people to take books off the shelf to browse and then not to borrow them. I will try it again and see what happens.

Same result: A staff member came almost immediately, book in hand, and replaced it. I am left to wonder if this is the whole collection, or if more is stored out the back and used to replenish shelves as needed. What would be the purpose of this? I would love to engage a staff member in a conversation to find out, but they are busy and actively ignoring me. I do not feel welcome here nor encouraged to stay.

The general collection is mostly spine out and alphabetical, with much less visual appeal. interestingly, the amount of space dedicated to reserves and requests seems almost equal to the space dedicated to the collection, indicating perhaps that the population here is well engaged with the LMS and acquainted with the online service offered. If this is the case, it would explain how the library can keep only part of the collection out at a time and therefore how it can serve the community with such a small space. I wonder if this is a consequence or response to the pandemic? While there is seating offered, it is not comfortable or cosy. I feel like I should not just be sitting to read – I am non-verbally encouraged to select, borrow and leave. I have mixed feelings about this.

Learning Objects

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Learning objects are reusable items, often, though not essentially, digital, that support technology-enriched learning. Today I have viewed a number of learning objects available through ESA . The first thing I noticed was the number of resources that were unavailable, moved or no longer supported. Of the first 8 resources I attempted to look at, 7 were no longer available. This was very disappointing and served to underline the importance of keeping resources updated, checking the live status of links on a regular basis and ensuring that bookmarks are regularly reviewed. It would be easy for a school library patron to discredit the library as an out-of-date, irrelevant institution if resources promised can not be delivered on such a regular basis. Regular maintenance of such repositories would have a three pronged impact: ensuring links are current and active, locating and potentially adding (or removing) new titles to ensure all learning areas are addressed, and promoting teacher librarian familiarity with the digital catalogue, allowing them to assist members of the school community to identify and locate resources at point of need.

Despite my initial lack of success, I did not give up. I looked for resources to support areas of the HSIE curriculum, looking at the places strand in the geography syllabus. For Early stage 1, I found a unit of work from The State Library of NSW: People live in places. Important places – Homes which is a mini unit of work based around a collection of photographs of homes in Australia during different time periods. Students learn about features of homes and how they have changed and stayed the same over time and consider how we look after homes. The inclusion of teachers’ notes along with all resources needed makes this a simple but effective activity for Kindergarten. Teachers can direct students’ attention to the fact that the State Library is a reliable source and discuss the value of photographs as primary sources. The inclusion of metadata with each item allows both class teachers and teacher librarians to attribute ownership and show students why it is important to do so.

Next I looked at Aboriginal understandings of weather and seasons. This interactive map shows the various traditions and beliefs from different areas of Australia. This is an interesting resource for year 1 as it combines understandings from both the Science and Geography syllabuses and makes clear the differences between the First Nations peoples. However, it is quite text heavy and would require teacher assistance to be useful for this age group. It would be interesting to pair with a study of Cooee Mittigar by Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Mulgo Watson.

Following on that theme for stage 2, I searched for a learning object for stage 2 about significant places in Australia. This site, https://storyspheres.com/uluru/​ takes viewers on a virtual tour of Uluru. At each place of interest, a recording of Aboriginal elders explaining the significance of what can be seen is available. The site is quite graphics and sound heavy and so is a little slow to load, however, it is a rich source of information gathered from a primary source and is accessible to all students due to its highly visual and auditory nature. This site is useful from a digital literacy perspective because the options available to the user do not become apparent unless the look for them. They need to use the 3D interface to notice details and look over the whole landscape before choosing where to go or what to listen to. The provides opportunities for discussion around examining all parts of a source rather than jumping in a focusing only on the obvious.

The final learning object I found for stage 3 involves comparing how people live in various parts of the world. Dollar Street allows users to compare the daily lives and activities of families from all over the world in all income brackets. Students in stage 3 can learn about ways in which they are similar and different to people all over the world, but also identify poverty as a significant issue in the well-being of people. This could be a very good resource to use in the initial stages of an inquiry unit and presents opportunities to look at how the families were selected, who is represented and, importantly, who is not represented. This video (Ted, 2018, January), a Ted talk by the creator explains it very well.

Ted. (2018, January). Anna Rosling Ronnllund: See how the rest of the world lives, organized by income

. YouTube. https://youtu.be/u4L130DkdOw