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Those Pesky Flash Drives

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, that essential first-decade-of-the-twenty-first-century technology, the flash drive, is still popular with students. Although we are moving to a cloud-based computing society, slowly transferring our files and documents to such always-accessible storage spaces such as Google Docs and Office OneDrive, the flash drive still reigns supreme. I don't know why- perhaps students are unaware that cloud storage exists, or they don't want to entrust their precious documents to the same company that runs their cell phones and knows where they are at any given time. Maybe they need to access their files at times when they don't have access to the internet.Whatever it is, we won't see the end of these useful but impossibly tiny devices for a while yet.

Part of the appeal of the flash drive is its size. You can store mountains of data on something small enough to fit in your pocket with room to spare for your keys and smart phone.  Size though, can also be the flash drive's downfall.They are so easy to forget and leave behind in the last  computer you used, separating you from your precious files and making them accessible to the next person who sits down. If I had a dime for every time a student came to me with a trembling voice and panicky face, saying "I lost my flash drive," I would not need to be a librarian.  Sometimes the tiny device is still in the computer, sometimes it has been found and turned in to the lost and found, but too often it has just vanished along with personal files and photos.

As an experienced flash drive user, I try to give tips to students to help them remember to take their flash drives.  One is to keep it connected to something without which they can't get very far: car keys, transit card, etc. If the student does not want to do that, I recommend attaching it to something obnoxiously colorful and noticeable. I kept my dissertation on a rubber ducky key ring- the ducky was big, goofy-looking, and impossible not to notice!  This method also comes in handy when the flash drive somehow gets left behind anyway. Most of the time students tell me their flash drives are black with a white slide, which describes about 80% of what's in our lost and found. It's hard to determine what is on them without plugging them into the desk computer (exposing it to viruses) and looking at the files. The student who tells me it's on a pink Hello Kitty key ring gets her flash drive back in a jiffy!

Finally, it's important to attach a little bit of your contact information physically on the flash drive. When we get one that has "if found, please call 555-5555" on it, we will call and let you know we've found it, and everyone will be happy!

Dr. Strangequiet, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Shush

I have always prided myself on not being a "typical" librarian, often conscientiously bucking the stereotypes. No buns in this hair, no glasses on chains, and I try to stay relatively up-to-date on fashion trends, with the exception of tattoos, piercings, and unnatural hair colors. I have always cultivated a relaxed library atmosphere where students feel comfortable expressing themselves and interacting with each other and the staff. 

In the three libraries for which I have worked prior to my current one, "busy" has been the word of the day, every day. In my first, a large research university, some of the upper floors were reserved as quiet study space while the main floor with its circulation and reference desks, offices, new books and government documents was a large and noisy beehive of activity, especially at the daily "Ten-O'Clock Break," a fifty-minute time when no classes were in session, loud bands played on the plaza outside our front doors, and students rushed in to return books and take care of their fines. The second, at a suburban community college, was a beehive on a smaller scale. Ours was the only continuously open computer lab on campus, and it became our primary reference area. We librarians flitted from student to student, answering questions and giving research advice wherever a hand was raised. The third was at a tiny rural community college nestled between the Ozarks and the Great Plains.  The library there was a one-person show and I was given a lot of autonomy over the environment. Students there used it as a communal space to meet and work in groups, and once again the lab was a beehive of activity, with the lone librarian flitting from student to student, often giving three or four different research consultations simultaneously. 

Then, I landed at my current college, a medium-sized community college in a large city. I did not expect this one to be any different. Was I ever surprised!  The staff all made sure to whisper in public areas and chastised anyone who did not follow suit- including me! At first I thought they were just being unreasonably librarian-ish. I soon came to realize, however, that the staff's obsession with the noise level was not theirs. It was driven by the students, as a few dirty looks told me when I accidentally spoke above a whisper. I discovered that our students value the silence since it is the only place that they in their hectic lives can get it. Two-year college students in urban areas are usually adults and quite driven in their pursuit of education, knowing as they do what life without an education is like. They have no patience for the juvenile antics of university students, and dive into their studies every minute they can. They insist on an environment conducive to study and contemplation and they demand silence. 

My motto as a librarian and academic is "Students First, Always." How can I deny my students what they need just because I don't want to be a stereotype? The answer is that I can't and still be a good librarian. So, against my nature, I have learned to whisper and tell the few unruly students to zip it. I do try to avoid the stereotypical "shush" and say things like "Whisper, please!' and "keep it down."  I no longer worry about coming across as a stereotype. To a certain extent, that's what my students want me to be, and I'm only too happy to oblige. 

Working Without a 'Net: Why I'm Glad I Never Used a Citation Generator

Many students consider a citation generator to be their best friend.  They are a great time-saver, after all. I have assisted students in their use and warned them about the tendency of many, especially the free ones found through Google, to be out-of-date or just plain wrong (We won't even go into the many ways that the EbscoHOST citations completely miss the mark).  I have steered them to the Purdue University Onine Writing Lab as a place to check the citations they get from the generators.

As a student, even in graduate school when online citation generators were becoming enormously popular, I never used one. I did it the old-fashioned way, the tedious, time-consuming way, and I'm glad I did.  I have written numerous research papers in APA and even more (including my dissertation and its exactly 100 references) in the American Political Science Association (APSA) format. I have written journal articles in Chicago format, which I would not wish on my worst enemy. As an undergraduate in the age of handwritten research papers, I (literally) wrote several in MLA.

Now I realize that all of this was preparing me for one of the roles I most frequently play professionally: style consultant. The undergraduates with whom I interact know nothing about style, especially citation format. They have no idea why it is important, and on first glance think it's no big deal. It takes a sophisticated user of style manuals to explain these things. I can also tell at a glance if a citation is incorrect, why, and how to fix it. If I had relied on a citation generator along the way, I would be just as clueless as my students and  I would miss so many important issues with their citations.

Working without a 'net may be aggravating, tedious, repetitive, or even scary, but all LIS programs should require their students to do it at least once, especially if they are concentrating in reference and instruction. I am convinced  that it is the only way to learn the skills necessary to advise students on this important aspect of academic work.

When Knowledge Was Scarce and Precious

     I work in a relatively high-tech field. In my library, electronic resources are the name of the game. My students and I have access to millions of individual resources on virtually every topic in our set of deep-web databases, and that's not even taking into account the open web, which has billions of pages (of varying degrees of veracity, of course) on any topic including some that you don't want to know even exist. Our job is to provide access to this information, wrangle it, and help students use and make sense of it. I am grateful for this wealth of information. It is a truly wonderful thing if used in consultation with a qualified guide (i.e. a librarian).  Lately, however, I have been feeling that we have lost something important about ourselves in this overwhelming wash of information.


     In the 70s and 80s, which encompassed the formative years of my childhood, information had an element of scarcity. If you needed the answer to a question, you couldn't just take a device out of your pocket and magically have the answer. Some effort was required. Printed materials had to be tracked down and consulted. Once you found the nugget of information, you could be relatively confident of two things: It was a precious accomplishment, and it was likely to be good (true, accurate) information. The scarcity of the knowledge, the selectivity of knowledge producers, and the effort required to get it made it a wonderful thing.


     I am lucky to have grown up in a home with an encyclopedia (I just assumed everyone had one). My parents even subscribed to the annual updates for a while. I spent many happy hours keeping boredom at bay by browsing it volume by random volume. It was not, however, an exhaustive source of information. There was a great deal that was not available so I had to put my shoes on and head to the library down the street from my school (or maybe the one IN my school- remember those?) I really remember fondly tracking down sources in print or microform, with that all-important call number-bearing slip of paper in hand, I have a habit of relentlessly pursuing a needed tidbit of information, even learning new systems in order to do it (a colleague calls me "Miss Marple" for my ability to identify and solve problems in some of our computer systems).  Now, of course, with most information, an answer is as close as that smartphone in your pocket.


     The problem, of course, with instant access to that avalanche of information, is  that a lot of it is just terrible- wrong, slanted, poorly explained or presented, etc.  The bigger problem is that anything that pops up is OK with most people. There's a concept in survey research called "satisficing," that is, giving an answer that is probably good enough but not optimal. Satisficing also works in reverse, A lot of us pick the first bit of information that seems to fit (or is "good enough") rather than taking the effort to find the best bit of information. In an era of information satisficing, information is cheapened to the point that it is basically worthless. It's sad, really.


     Another problem with the cheapening of information is that most of us never get past the second step on the hierarchy which his usually defined as data, information, knowledge, and wisdom.  To simplify it greatly, think of a car. If you see a bunch of parts lying around, that is data- the little bits that might be useful, but without some sort of schema for interpreting them (like a Chilton's manual?) You have no idea what their meaning could be. When these bits are put together  through the appropriate schema, we have information. You can see it is a car and you know what a car is. Next, you can learn and understand the information. You know how to drive a car. This is knowledge.  If you can internalize, interpret, evaluate, and use this knowledge, you have wisdom. You know why it is important to drive carefully, and you intend to do so. If you are satisficing in the great shallow sea of information, you get data arranged in a schema (usually a language with most web information), and if you understand the output of the schema (i.e. English, Spanish, etc.) you have information. But we usually don't get past that point. We get no real knowledge out of it ( seeing and "liking" Kim K's newest revealing dress is not knowledge), let alone wisdom which is in very short supply these days.


     Without knowledge and wisdom we are left with a dumbed-down populace, intellectually strangled by the abundance of information instead of being lifted up by it. There is value in scarcity, but it is up to people like me to try to preserve that value in the face of an unfortunate abundance.
    

Two Learning Technologies Compared

GALILEO Scholar (Georgia Library Learning Online)

GALILEO  is an aggregator of academic databases for college students with a discovery tool (similar to a federated search, if that means anything to anyone here) that provides for retrieval of resources for student use. Try it above. In order to get the full functionality you must be a student in a Georgia institution, but you should get a good idea of how it works by using the above widget. The “goal” of GALILEO is to provide information and facilitate the finding of specific information. Many of the database products in GALILEO have other learning features such as citation generators, etc.

GALILEO does not overtly “teach” a particular skill, but it assists in the learning process by providing access to resources and supporting information. The primary technology involved in teaching students to use GALILEO is called a librarian.  What can users learn from GALILEO? Well, aside from just retrieving articles, GALILEO can assist students in getting an overview of a topic, finding a search vocabulary, and creating a search strategy.  GALILEO is, in a way, both content and procedure- it contains the content (articles and other resources) and provides the procedure (discovery tool, search vocabulary, and search construction) for most efficiently accessing the content. It is most definitely a constructionist technology. With every search you conduct and search strategy you create, you are learning how search engines work and gaining the skills to search better. I guess you could say it’s open-ended because while the specific goal is finding and using information, the type of information for which the student can search is infinite in its possibilities.

Card Catalogs

An earlier technology that is somewhat analogous to GALILEO (hey, paper is a technology, right?) is the old library catalog, contained in massive wooden cabinets full of 3x5 cards. I would also include microfiche catalogs in this category because the worked in exactly the same fashion. They just took up less space. Unlike GALILEO, the card catalog required a pretty hefty knowledge of controlled vocabulary to use. Although its intended audience was the average library user, it inherently required the hand-holding of a librarian to use effectively at all. Instead of using keywords that could search the entire document citation or full text, library catalogs had limited entry points.  If you looked for information on feline diseases, for instance, you first had to find out whether they were going to be listed under “felines” or “cats” in the catalog. Maybe there was a “see also” card under “felines” referring you to the correct subject heading, “cats” but maybe there wasn’t. Searches could potentially end quite early with no satisfactory result.  Learning about search strategy construction by performing repeat searches was nearly impossible because the search vocabulary (and the number of access points) was so limited.  Often a librarian had to be consulted just to find the proper subject heading.

With GALILEO, librarians are able to actively involve students in the search for information and really hone a student’s ability to seek, find and use information in a way the card catalog just couldn’t. In this way it is also more playful than the card catalog. I tell students all the time to just play with it. Experiment with search terms and strategies.  I went to library school because of GALILEO and technologies like it so I will have to say that the reason I find it engaging, thought provoking, motivating, whatever, is the power that it puts in my hands to find good, authoritative, useful information on virtually any topic.

In Praise of the Cheap Paperback

     I admit being an e-book addict. There are three Kindles in my household along with a smart phone on which I occasionally read. E-books are great and e-readers provide a very convenient and distraction-free reading experience. Still, I find myself being drawn to the appeal of the cheap, discounted paperback.
    
     These are the books you can usually find haphazardly thrown into a bin at a discount store, priced at a dollar or two.  My favorite places for cheap books are Big Lots and the Dollar Tree. The selection is eclectic- fiction, history, last year's politics, self-help, religion, etc. I am partial to the fiction which ranges from mysteries and political thrillers to romance novels and historical fiction. Very few of these are big-time, top-ten bestsellers, but they are interesting nevertheless, and usually what I call "mind candy," or books that do not require a lot of intellectual effort and are therefore purely entertaining.


     When I was working on my doctorate and facing massive amounts of dry readings on such thrilling topics as higher education law and public sector finance, I found it hard to keep reading and highlighting the endless heavy textbooks and scholarly articles with itsy-bitsy print, and was tempted to give up on it. After a particularly fruitful book haul at Big Lots, I decided to use the mind candy as a reward. For every textbook chapter or journal article I read, I would take a break and read a chapter of one of my paperbacks. It worked, keeping me motivated and giving me much-needed breaks.
    
     Now that I don't have to think about textbooks and articles (outside of my job, which deals heavily in both), I use my mind candy as a motivator for exercise. I read my little books on the exercise bike, and before I know it a half hour or more has gone by.


     Here are some of the great little reads I discovered:


Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky by Chris Greenhalgh


Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen


Critical Mass by Whitley Streiber


Secret Keepers by Mindy Friddle


Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe


A Version of the Truth by Jennfer Kaufman


The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger


The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport


The Anarchist in the Library by Siva Vaidhyanathan


The Day After Roswell by Philip J. Corso


My Thoughts be Bloody by Nora Titone (this one is an autographed copy!)


The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen


     So why do these little gems have such appeal to me instead of the e-book versions? Well, for starters there is no such thing as an autographed e-book. More importantly, there is still something to be said for serendipity and the very real and visceral feeling of being able to put my hands on an actual object, hold it, flip through it, purchase it, put it in a bag, and take it home. To me there is no comparable feeling.  In spite of the high-tech convenience of e-reading, I still miss the big-box bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders. There will be nothing in the world like the codex format with its ancient pedigree and its continuing relevance. I guess I'm just old-fashioned that way.