Massive Open Online Courses

Guzman, Laura

Gore, H. (2014). Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and their impact on academic library services: Exploring the issues and challenges. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 20(1), 4-28.

Descriptive Summary:

This article discusses the impact that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are having on academic library services.  MOOCs are unique because they are usually free, with no time boundaries or prerequisites, and have the ability to remix content to individual needs.  At one time a class could have hundreds of thousands of students. 

MOOCs began when the University of Manitoba, Canada launched an open course in 2008.  Shortly afterwards, Stanford University began free online courses which became a start-up called Udacity.  Now there are dozens of other organizations sponsoring MOOCs such as Coursera, Khan Academy, and edX.  Coursera has developed the largest peer-grading system to date with thousands of students reviewing each other’s work. 

Where does the librarian fit into these MOOCs?  Information literacy is crucial to the success of these courses.  The librarian needs to continue to connect people with information.  A newer role for librarians is to be an ambassador for collaboration between students, professors, and this online environment.  A librarian might help a professor by questioning sources, choosing a presentation medium, developing a search strategy, selecting relevant databases and resources, and formulating questions.  A few challenges might be influencing faculties, copyright, delivering remote services, and dealing with a very diverse group of students.  

Evaluation:

It is not surprising that MOOCs are growing tremendously.  The idea of free education will appeal to so many people.  I have never taken a MOOC, but would like to try it to see how it differs from regular online courses.  MOOCs will be especially popular for those who would like enrichment learning after already completing a degree program.  MOOCs are definitely links that we can add to our research guides in the academic library.  

Ebooks, data collection and privacy concerns

Christopher Fluetsch

Andromeda. (2014, October 8). Ebook choices and the missing soul of librarianship. [Blog]. Retrieved from https://andromedayelton.com/2014/10/08/ebooks-choices-and-the-missing-soul-of-librarianship/

As electronic, online resources become more popular as library provided content, librarians cannot ignore the privacy issues that come with such materials. The author of this article points out that information gathering is considered best-practice in computer programming, and our patrons may unknowingly expose a great deal of the private information with using online resources. The author is particularly concerned with information about reading habits that may be gathered automatically by ebook programs, information that all the ethics of the professional say should remain private.

The article offers few solutions, but the author is adamant that librarians insist on privacy rights from ebook vendors. Librarians must force ebook publishers and vendors to change the status quo of their business before we fully adopt an ebook paradigm.

I am not sure how realistic the author’s proposals are. At this point, services like Overdrive have become so ubiquitous that we may already be past the tipping point on electronic privacy. However, I do believe that libraries have a responsibility to their users to ensure that everyone understands what privacy rights they may be giving up in when using ebooks.

As a teacher librarian, this is particularly concerning to me. I want my students to know and value their right to privacy, and I want to ensure that I am not accidentally exposing their data. Partly this is accomplished by educating our district ITS department on the importance of judging programs and vendors by their commitment to student privacy. Another important part, though, is educating the students about their rights and responsibilities.

This article was written 2 years ago, so some of the technical aspect may be out of date, but the overall thrust is an important reminder for all librarians that our the theoretical ethics of the profession may, at times, be in conflict with current practices as we adopt a greater online presence.

A Librarian's Guide to Homelessness

Clifford, Simon
Info266, Fall 2016

Dowd, R. (2013, May 20). A librarian’s guide to homelessness [video file]. Retrieved from 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYiEEhhrFh4&feature=youtu.be

Summary: 

In this video aimed at librarians, Ryan Dowd, the director of a homeless shelter discusses the characteristics and needs common to those homeless individuals who visit libraries, and explores some of the challenges to serving them. The first part of the video is focused on the lived experience of the homeless. The second part, starting about 23:00 minutes in, shifts to focus on effective ways for library staff to interact with homeless patrons. 

Evaluation:

"A librarian's guide to homelessness" is part training, part advocacy. Dowd devotes a lot of time to conveying what it is like to be homeless and why a homeless person might behave in certain ways. In the latter part of the video, he gives a few concrete tips for avoiding escalation or deescalating tense situations. This video does not really cover how to handle major conflicts or other critical situations. It's a bit lengthy at 38:00 minutes, but I personally found it to be very insightful. 

So You Bought a Racist Book...

Micka, Tracy

INFO266, Fall 2016

Angie Manfredi (2016, August 10). So you bought a racist book for your library: now what? [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://readingwhilewhite.blogspot.com/2016/08/so-you-bought-racist-book-for-your.html

Summary:

In charge of collection development, the author reiterates the importance of reading book reviews critically and following your own judgement. She also offers advice on what to do if you already have a potentially offensive book on your shelves.

My Comments:

I think many busy librarians may have relied on professional reviews for book selections and later came to find out their choice was a mistake. How do we walk the line between creating an overly subjective collection and a totally crowd sourced one (including patron requests and professional reviews), that may result in reiterating stereotypes that mainstream culture accepts?

Cooperative Collection Development and ebooks

Micka, Tracy

INFO266, Fall 2016

Swindler, L. l. (2016). New Consortial Model for E-Books Acquisitions. College & Research Libraries, 77(3), 269-285.

Summary:

This article presents a sustainable model for the consortial acquisition of e-books and print titles needed to support multidisciplinary instruction and research. Using the model as a transitional program, the central goal was to shift the balance of monographic acquisitions to e-books over time, on a financially sustainable cost-neutral basis. The idea that ebooks and their print analogs complement one another for educational purposes is the underlying basis of the program.

How can they collectively acquire or share ebooks? Ebook sharing in a consortium is difficult, traditionally resulting in inequitable costs to the institutions involved, as price multipliers create limits to simultaneous access. Publishers, vendors, libraries, and users all have their own needs, some of which directly clash. Three important developments contribute to such difficulties: 1) changes in the means by which research libraries build collections; 2) eResources vastly expand the scale of a collection; 3) new metrics in measuring cooperative collection development in a digital environment (ILL doesn’t work for ebooks ).

One of the main principles for the model was to widely purchase multiple copies of ebooks, but limit print books to a single copy of a limited number of titles. Print books are stored offsite, and individual institutions have their own copies of eBooks. This acquisition mandate turned on its head the traditional notion of a successful shared collection as one that has a massive amount of unique titles. Since this new program is predicated on committing to automatically purchase the entire (monographic) output of participating publishers, success is measured by how efficiently money is spent to ensure each member institution can provide its users with immediate and unfettered access at a scale that would not be possible without the consortium. In this way, success is no longer measured by how many unique titles, but by how extensively titles have been duplicated within the consortium. Such metrics are based on the Association of Research Libraries’ call to think of collections as components instead of products (p. 273). As a result, the focus shifts from title-by-title purchasing decisions by individual subject librarians to wholesale block purchases dictated by policy-level decisions. Book vendors become critical partners for helping the consortium understand which publishers would work for their goals and for establishing new ways of sourcing, acquiring and processing ebooks and print books in tandem on a wholesale acquisition basis.

Problems encountered in the pilot program were numerous, and included:

• Failure to take full advantage of the book vendor’s profiling capabilities when deciding which print books were the most important to purchase
• Resource delivery mechanisms
• eBook platform response time
• Not always clear when print or eBooks had arrived / were available

Librarian & Patron Response

Interestingly, although patrons tend to report that they prefer physical books over ebooks, it was the librarians who tended to be more cautious / reluctant to duplicate eBooks. This is likely because users have come to expect instant access, and ebooks deliver this. Also, eBooks are a quick way for patrons to scope out if the title is even of interest, before having to go though the process of ordering the (off-site) print copy.

Shifting to eBooks is thus possible and acceptable, especially when you continue to purchase high-visibility/high-use titles and enable on-demand acquisition of print duplicates. Doing so through consortial cooperative collection development programs is also possible, with the following advice:

• Understand how your patrons use eBooks, the devil of purchasing decisions is in the details, remain flexible.
• The eBook publishing environment is unpredictable and evolving- again, remain flexible and willing to experiment
• Individual institutions will have to compromise sometimes in order to preserve the value of the consortium
• Librarians, publishers and vendors will have to to communicate with each other often and well
• Librarians will have to invest time  in educating staff and developing new metrics

My comments:

The basic ideas of this article are very instructive, though without a working background in acquisitions and only a basic understanding of the modern publishing environment, many of details are lost. The take-home is important, though: the program allowed the consortium to “bypass the perennial format fetish debates about e-books versus print books” (p 280), supporting what previous research has already found- that it’s a false dichotomy. The pilot program proved that what patrons say they prefer (physical books) and what they will come to accept and learn to use (ebooks), are two different things. It’s a whole new world- patrons, librarians, publishers and vendors are all adapting dynamically. The old paradigm has been shattered, so examples like this pilot program help us envision a new way forward.

"The Uncomfortable Truth about Children's Books" - from Mother Jones Magazine - Sept. 2016

Christopher Fluetsch

Slater, D. (2016, September 9). The uncomfortable truth about children’s books. Mother Jones. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/08/diversity-childrens-books-slavery-twitter

    I started reading Mother Jones magazine back in high school, partly for the articles, but mostly because if you were in high school in Lodi, CA, in the late-80’s, reading Mother Jones was the second-most rebellious thing you could do, right after coming out, and was a lot less likely to get you beaten up on a regular basis. Plus, it always felt like an adventure to drive to the one magazine store in south Stockton that stocked Mother Jones, right next to the latest issue of Pravda.

I never really considered that 3 decades later I’d still be reading it. It just goes to show that you never can tell where literacy will take you.

This article is a well-written overview of some of the problems facing librarians, parents and others in creating a diverse collection of children’s literature. It discusses the business of publishing, the negative feedback loop created when multicultural books are published but don’t sell, leading to few such books, leading to non-white potential readers ignoring books that are available and so forth. It also touches on some of the recent controversies in children’s publishing, including the withdrawal from sale of A Birthday Cake for George Washington.

An important aspect of the article for library science students is the section that looks at gatekeeping. We are gatekeepers, whether we like it or not, and the decisions we make affect what our students read. Keeping this in mind through the entire process, from collection development to in-library marketing, will help us better serve our clients.

Including books that represent and appeal to a diverse patron population is an important challenge for librarians of all types. I find this is particularly true in my elementary school library. I try to select a wide array of books, and I try to encourage students to read outside their own personal comfort zones, but locating and acquiring a variety of such books is difficult. The article does not offer any major solutions, but it does a good job offering an overview of some of the problems.

"Library: An Unquiet History" by M. Battles

Fluetsch, Christopher

Battles, M. (2015). Library: An unquiet history. NewYork: W.W. Norton & Company.

Battle’s Library is a tremendous book about the history of libraries, both as physical locations and as philosophical ideas. The writing is clear, though sometimes Battles’ training as an academic writer comes through a little more than one might hope. The book is a wide ranging history, from some of the oldest collection of texts, like Sumerian cuneiform tablets, to modern digital libraries.

While the focus of the text is not specifically collection development, there are many implications for practice scattered throughout history. I found the section on medieval and Renaissance libraries to be especially compelling. It was at this time that the practice of library collection development became a profession, albeit a rare one. Italy of the 15th and 16th centuries had people who made their living out of providing libraries for rich patrons. The libraries of the day were as much about ostentatious displays of power and wealth as they were storehouses of knowledge.

The author also spends a number of pages on the fight within the British Library that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, between those who felt the collection should contain the great works of antiquity, placing much more emphasis on the importance of authority, versus those who thought the library should make an effort to seek out and acquire new books and modern research. The questions of how to use scarce resources and fill limited space is not a new one!

The author also deals with movements to restrict access to information and declare some form of knowledge “forbidden,” both in older days and today. Collection development always has to take into account community standards and expectations, and a fuller understanding of changes expectations over time can only help today’s library professionals better understand the world in which we work.

Sometimes, thinkers of the past would argue against libraries on the basis that book were no substitute for human interaction. This is reflected in today’s arguments about the use of information technology, especially among young people. Histories like Library help provide perspective on modern problems and discussions. Each generation seems to discover two things anew: sex and disapproval of the young.

This is not a book I would recommend for the general reading public, because of its highly specialized content. However, as a librarian, I found it fascinating and very much enjoyed learning about all the ways today’s library challenges mirror those from the past.

253 pages, including index. Softcover $8.19 on Amazon.