Discusses common issues in literacy, learning and libraries in Canada. Role of libraries and librarians in literacy; Need to have collaboration between public libraries and school districts on professional family literacy programs; Measures to succeed in making library programs effective for students

Haycock, Ken

English

SJSU ScholarWorks

San Jose State UniversitySJSU ScholarWorksFaculty Publications School of Information1-1-2003Literacy, learning and libraries: Common issues andcommon concernsKen HaycockSan Jose State University, ken.haycock@sjsu.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slis_pubPart of the Library and Information Science CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Information at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in FacultyPublications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@sjsu.edu.Recommended CitationKen Haycock. "Literacy, learning and libraries: Common issues and common concerns" Feliciter (2003): 36-37.             F e l i c i t e r • Issue #1, 2003 hemeT Feature Literacy, Learning and Libraries:Common Issues and Common Concerns Ken Haycock Librarians are highly effective in enabling customers and clients to make informed decisions based on the best evidence available. We seem less successful in applying those same standards and approaches to our own professional practice, particularly with regard to literacy and learning programs. The result is programs that do not have the effect for the dollar that would otherwise be possible. Consider these recent examples reported in the professional and scholarly literature. Role clarification What is the role of libraries and librarians in literacy? We have never been very clear or consistent about this. Are we in the library business? The information business? Or the community development business? Are we advocates talking “library, library, library” or players at the table, talking “literacy, learning, student achievement”? The teaching role of librarians is becoming more apparent and more sophisticated, whether we are working with students in classes and other groups or providing staff development and training programs for support staff. Teaching students and staff is a highly skilled occupation; indeed, graduate degrees are given in these areas. Can we really expect to master these skills and strategies in one-day workshops? How can we ensure that our staff are well trained if we have only sporadic staff development programs that are not aligned to organizational goals and have a low priority in budget deliberations? Too often, recent graduates in librarianship are hired for their technological expertise rather than for their ability to fill the overall and long-term needs of the system, due to the absence of a well-coordinated and well-supported staff training program. And what of the role of our staff? If youth literacy is a priority, are we better served by children’s librarians serving children directly or by reorienting their role to train others – daycare supervisors, community centre leaders, and p reschool and primary school teachers – in selecting literature, telling stories and programming around quality books? The former leads to a quality library-based program, while the latter increases our influence and position in the community. Each has its points, but we can rarely afford both. We often leave these choices to individual preference rather than focusing on organizational priorities and community outcomes. Partnerships Many public libraries ar e developing highly focused and professional family literacy programs in response to community needs. Many school districts are simultane­ously doing the same thing. Rarely are the two agencies aware of the plans and programs of the other; r a rely do the two agencies collaborate as equal partners (and with other community groups) to ensure that all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. How odd that our history leads us to think that “partnerships ‘r’ us,” yet we seem unable to bridge the gap between these two education and learning institutions. Of course there are exceptions, but the exception merely spotlights the norm. Homework centres are common public library services in the United Kingdom and United States, although not so common here, and they do make a diff e rence to students. Rarely, however, is the school district involved in promoting the service, referring specific students or participating in studies of effect on attendance and performance. We even let the district off the hook 3 6 Canadian Library Association w w w. c l a . c a             Issue #1, 2003 • F e l i c i t e r w w w. c l a . c a Cana dian Library Association 3 7        L i n k i n g C a n a d a ' s I n f o r m a t i o n P r o f e s s i o n a l s for training tutors, their area of expertise. We are oriented to providing service, which is certainly laudable, but we are less oriented to assessing outcomes and impact beyond the anecdotal “I enjoyed myself and it made a difference.” Similarly, one might argue that the only difference between a high school senior and a university freshman is two months, and yet high school and academic librarians know little of each other’s worlds, let alone the issues and priorities that preoccupy them. Collaboration More than 40 years’ research in teacher-librarianship makes clear that student achievement is affected by teacher-librarians only when they collaborate with classroom teachers to integrate information skills and strategies. Recent re s e a rch in academic librarianship is drawing the same conclusions. Nevertheless, we pro c e e d with our own interests and at our own comfort levels. We offer mor e stand-alone classes and courses in information literacy (or bibliographic instruction or even library skills) rather than working to integrate our work with that of faculty, which would be more difficult but also more successful. What are our measures of success? Librarians prefer stand-alone classes and seminars in the library and are generally happy with them. Although attendance at these sessions tends to be low, students seem pleased with the program. However, studies tell us that improved student achievement results more from collaboration with faculty. In fact, students do better when there is collaboration between two partners, librarian and instructor, for a mor e integrated instructional approach. programs. Any good reference librarian knows this. What is the sense of searching for information if the task is not articulated and understood? What is the sense of evaluating information from several sources if the student is unable to synthesize and present the results? … student achievement results m o re f rom c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h f a c u l t y.Students also do better in critical thinking when the instruction is embedded in an articulated information process model. The information process Libraries are moving from providing “physical” access to information and ideas (the book in hand, the text or video on the screen) to “intellectual” access (the ability to assess the information, derive meaning from it and synthesize it to share with others). While these labels and figures of speech are useful, they need to be translated into practice. If libraries and librarians are serious about information literacy, then the entire information cycle needs to be incorporated into our Research from the U.K. dating from the 1970s and from the U.S. more recently provides guidance on creating effective programs through analysis of students’ feelings, abilities and needs from the initiation of the project to completion and evaluation. Ample opportunity is typically provided for students to locate and evaluate information. But there is often insufficient time to determine the parameters of the problem or task. And there is relatively little guidance or time to think – to analyse and synthesize and to assess one’s own effectiveness in the process and the product. Literacy, Learning and Libraries continued on page 43                          L i n k i n g C a n a d a ' s I n f o r m a t i o n P r o f e s s i o n a l s      serves on the CASLIS Ottawa Coordinator for the main library. She Chapter Executive. She writes to loves the job and the city and might say that “being a CACUL grant not be there today if she “hadn’t recipient in 1991 enabled me to talked to someone raving about meet a lot of people I would not Memorial at the 1997 CLA confer-have met otherwise…and helped me ence!” Dianne states that “early feel like I was a part of CLA, more involvement with CLA has led so than had I simply attended the me to significant involvement in conference. It…may have con - professional associations over the tributed to subsequent requests to years. I am involved with provincial speak and convene sessions, and to and regional library associations, and be involved as CACUL convenor at am currently the convenor of CLA’s CLA’97.” Standing Committee on Research and Development.” Joanne Heritz, CLA 1996, Halifax Joanne is currently employed at the CTCL Communiqué – Online! St. Catharines Public Library and is The Community and Technical working on a master ’s degree in College (CTCL) section of CACUL political science at Brock University. publishes the CTCL Communiqué, which is now available in .pdf format Dianne Cmor, CLA 1997, Ottawa in the MembersOnlyne section of the Dianne has been working as an infor- CACUL web site at www.cla.ca/ mation services librarian at Memorial m e m b e r s / c a c u l / c t c l / c o m m u n i q u e . h t m. University of Newfoundland since 1998, and is currently the Instru c t i o n Student Article Contest Calling all LIS students and recent graduates! Turn that awesome term paper into the opportunity of a lifetime. Submit your excellent essay to the CLA Student Article Contest! If your paper is s e l e c t e d, you’ll be on your way to the CLA Annual Conference in Toronto in June 2003, all expenses paid! AND it will be published in Feliciter. If you are registered in or recently graduated from a Canadian library school, a library techniques program, an information science program, or faculty of education library program, this contest is for you. For more information check out the CLA web site at www.cla.ca/awards/ student.htm or contact Brenda Shields at the CLA office at (613) 232-9625 ext. 318; bshields@cla.ca. Contest closing date: April 1, 2003 The CLA Student Article Contest is sponsored by Coutts Information Services, Micromedia ProQuest, Bowker, and the Wosk Family Bursar y. Literacy, Learning and Libraries continued from page 37 A consistent model for developing the information process incorporated into faculty assignments would better s u p p o rt student learning. If our challenge is the assignment given by the faculty member, it makes intuitive sense to integrate information process instruc­tion and the research bears this out. Are any of these easy? Of course not. Do they make a difference? Yes they do. Libraries are effective in building community, and librarians are catalysts for adding value to services and programs. By using our own research and by making a commitment to evidence-based practice, we can not only be more effective in our practice, but we will also demonstrate clearly our alignment with the overall goals of the institution, whether school, university or government agency. We know children benefit from our literacy programs, but their effect would be enhanced through formal partnerships with other community players. We know students benefit fro m our information literacy programs, but their effect would be enhanced thro u g h formal partnerships with faculty. If we wish to add value, prove our worth and be rewarded for it in return, then we must embrace evidence-based practice and insist on evidence for decision making. These stances can only make us stronger and more effective as a profession. Ken Haycock is a professor in the School of L i b r a ry, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. Issue #1, 2003 • F e l i c i t e r w w w. c l a . c a Canadi an Library Association 4 3 

Literacy, learning and libraries: Common issues and common concerns

San Jose State University

San Jose State University
SJSU ScholarWorks
Faculty Publications School of Information
1-1-2003
Literacy, learning and libraries: Common issues and
common concerns
Ken Haycock
San Jose State University, ken.haycock@sjsu.edu
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slis_pub
Part of the Library and Information Science Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Information at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty
Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@sjsu.edu.
Recommended Citation
Ken Haycock. "Literacy, learning and libraries: Common issues and common concerns" Feliciter (2003): 36-37.
 
 
   
  
      F e l i c i t e r • Issue #1, 2003 
hemeT Feature 
Literacy, Learning and Libraries:
Common Issues and 
Common Concerns
 
Ken Haycock 
Librarians are highly effective in 
enabling customers and clients to 
make informed decisions based on 
the best evidence available. We seem 
less successful in applying those same 
standards and approaches to our own 
professional practice, particularly 
with regard to literacy and learning 
programs. The result is programs that 
do not have the effect for the dollar 
that would otherwise be possible. 
Consider these recent examples 
reported in the professional and 
scholarly literature. 
Role clarification 
What is the role of libraries and 
librarians in literacy? We have never 
been very clear or consistent about 
this. Are we in the library business? 
The information business? Or the 
community development business? 
Are we advocates talking “library, 
library, library” or players at the 
table, talking “literacy, learning, 
student achievement”? 
The teaching role of librarians 
is becoming more apparent and 
more sophisticated, whether we are 
working with students in classes 
and other groups or providing staff 
development and training programs 
for support staff. Teaching students 
and staff is a highly skilled 
occupation; indeed, graduate degrees 
are given in these areas. Can we 
really expect to master these skills 
and strategies in one-day workshops? 
How can we ensure that our staff are 
well trained if we have only sporadic 
staff development programs that are 
not aligned to organizational goals 
and have a low priority in budget 
deliberations? Too often, recent 
graduates in librarianship are hired 
for their technological expertise 
rather than for their ability to fill 
the overall and long-term needs 
of the system, due to the absence 
of a well-coordinated and well-
supported staff training program. 
And what of the role of our staff? 
If youth literacy is a priority, 
are we better served by children’s 
librarians serving children directly 
or by reorienting their role to train 
others – daycare supervisors, 
community centre leaders, and 
p reschool and primary school teachers 
– in selecting literature, telling stories 
and programming around quality 
books? The former leads to a quality 
library-based program, while the 
latter increases our influence and 
position in the community. Each has 
its points, but we can rarely afford 
both. We often leave these choices 
to individual preference rather than 
focusing on organizational priorities 
and community outcomes. 
Partnerships 
Many public libraries ar e 
developing highly focused and 
professional family literacy programs 
in response to community needs. 
Many school districts are simultane­
ously doing the same thing. Rarely 
are the two agencies aware of the 
plans and programs of the other; 
r a rely do the two agencies collaborate 
as equal partners (and with other 
community groups) to ensure that all 
the pieces of the puzzle fit together. 
How odd that our history leads us to 
think that “partnerships ‘r’ us,” yet 
we seem unable to bridge the gap 
between these two education and 
learning institutions. Of course there 
are exceptions, but the exception 
merely spotlights the norm. 
Homework centres are common 
public library services in the United 
Kingdom and United States, 
although not so common here, and 
they do make a diff e rence to students. 
Rarely, however, is the school district 
involved in promoting the service, 
referring specific students or 
participating in studies of effect 
on attendance and performance. 
We even let the district off the hook 
3 6 Canadian Library Association w w w. c l a . c a 
  
  
  
      Issue #1, 2003 • F e l i c i t e r w w w. c l a . c a Cana dian Library Association 3 7 
   
 
   L i n k i n g C a n a d a ' s I n f o r m a t i o n P r o f e s s i o n a l s 
for training tutors, their area of 
expertise. We are oriented to 
providing service, which is certainly 
laudable, but we are less oriented to 
assessing outcomes and impact 
beyond the anecdotal “I enjoyed 
myself and it made a difference.” 
Similarly, one might argue that 
the only difference between a high 
school senior and a university 
freshman is two months, and yet 
high school and academic librarians 
know little of each other’s worlds, 
let alone the issues and priorities 
that preoccupy them. 
Collaboration 
More than 40 years’ research in 
teacher-librarianship makes clear 
that student achievement is affected 
by teacher-librarians only when they 
collaborate with classroom teachers 
to integrate information skills and 
strategies. Recent re s e a rch in academic 
librarianship is drawing the same 
conclusions. Nevertheless, we pro c e e d 
with our own interests and at our 
own comfort levels. We offer mor e 
stand-alone classes and courses in 
information literacy (or bibliographic 
instruction or even library skills) 
rather than working to integrate our 
work with that of faculty, which 
would be more difficult but also more 
successful. 
What are our measures of success? 
Librarians prefer stand-alone classes 
and seminars in the library and 
are generally happy with them. 
Although attendance at these sessions 
tends to be low, students seem 
pleased with the program. However, 
studies tell us that improved student 
achievement results more from 
collaboration with faculty. In fact, 
students do better when there is 
collaboration between two partners, 
librarian and instructor, for a mor e 
integrated instructional approach. 
programs. Any good reference 
librarian knows this. What is the 
sense of searching for information 
if the task is not articulated and 
understood? What is the sense of 
evaluating information from several 
sources if the student is unable to 
synthesize and present the results? 
… student achievement results m o re 
f rom c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h f a c u l t y.
Students also do better in critical 
thinking when the instruction is 
embedded in an articulated 
information process model. 
The information process 
Libraries are moving from 
providing “physical” access to 
information and ideas (the book in 
hand, the text or video on the 
screen) to “intellectual” access 
(the ability to assess the information, 
derive meaning from it and 
synthesize it to share with others). 
While these labels and figures of 
speech are useful, they need to be 
translated into practice. 
If libraries and librarians are 
serious about information literacy, 
then the entire information cycle 
needs to be incorporated into our 
Research from the U.K. dating from 
the 1970s and from the U.S. more 
recently provides guidance on 
creating effective programs through 
analysis of students’ feelings, abilities 
and needs from the initiation of 
the project to completion and 
evaluation. Ample opportunity is 
typically provided for students to 
locate and evaluate information. 
But there is often insufficient time 
to determine the parameters of the 
problem or task. And there is 
relatively little guidance or time to 
think – to analyse and synthesize and 
to assess one’s own effectiveness in 
the process and the product. 
Literacy, Learning and Libraries 
continued on page 43 
   
  
 
      
   
  
   
  
   L i n k i n g C a n a d a ' s I n f o r m a t i o n P r o f e s s i o n a l s 
    
 
serves on the CASLIS Ottawa Coordinator for the main library. She 
Chapter Executive. She writes to loves the job and the city and might 
say that “being a CACUL grant not be there today if she “hadn’t 
recipient in 1991 enabled me to talked to someone raving about 
meet a lot of people I would not Memorial at the 1997 CLA confer-
have met otherwise…and helped me ence!” Dianne states that “early 
feel like I was a part of CLA, more involvement with CLA has led 
so than had I simply attended the me to significant involvement in 
conference. It…may have con - professional associations over the 
tributed to subsequent requests to years. I am involved with provincial 
speak and convene sessions, and to and regional library associations, and 
be involved as CACUL convenor at am currently the convenor of CLA’s 
CLA’97.” Standing Committee on Research 
and Development.” 
Joanne Heritz, CLA 1996, Halifax 
Joanne is currently employed at the CTCL Communiqué – Online! 
St. Catharines Public Library and is The Community and Technical 
working on a master ’s degree in College (CTCL) section of CACUL 
political science at Brock University. publishes the CTCL Communiqué, 
which is now available in .pdf format 
Dianne Cmor, CLA 1997, Ottawa in the MembersOnlyne section of the 
Dianne has been working as an infor- CACUL web site at www.cla.ca/ 
mation services librarian at Memorial m e m b e r s / c a c u l / c t c l / c o m m u n i q u e . h t m. 
University of Newfoundland since 
1998, and is currently the Instru c t i o n 
Student Article Contest 
Calling all LIS students and recent graduates! 
Turn that awesome term paper into the opportunity of a lifetime. Submit 
your excellent essay to the CLA Student Article Contest! If your paper is 
s e l e c t e d, you’ll be on your way to the CLA Annual Conference in Toronto in 
June 2003, all expenses paid! AND it will be published in Feliciter. 
If you are registered in or recently graduated from a Canadian library 
school, a library techniques program, an information science program, or 
faculty of education library program, this contest is for you. 
For more information check out the CLA web site at www.cla.ca/awards/ 
student.htm or contact Brenda Shields at the CLA office at (613) 232-9625 
ext. 318; bshields@cla.ca. 
Contest closing date: April 1, 2003 
The CLA Student Article Contest is sponsored by Coutts Information 
Services, Micromedia ProQuest, Bowker, and the Wosk Family Bursar y. 
Literacy, Learning and Libraries 
continued from page 37 
A consistent model for developing 
the information process incorporated 
into faculty assignments would better 
s u p p o rt student learning. If our challenge 
is the assignment given by the faculty 
member, it makes intuitive sense to 
integrate information process instruc­
tion and the research bears this out. 
Are any of these easy? Of course 
not. Do they make a difference? Yes 
they do. Libraries are effective in 
building community, and librarians are 
catalysts for adding value to services 
and programs. By using our own 
research and by making a commitment 
to evidence-based practice, we can not 
only be more effective in our practice, 
but we will also demonstrate clearly 
our alignment with the overall goals 
of the institution, whether school, 
university or government agency. 
We know children benefit from our 
literacy programs, but their effect 
would be enhanced through formal 
partnerships with other community 
players. We know students benefit fro m 
our information literacy programs, but 
their effect would be enhanced thro u g h 
formal partnerships with faculty. If we 
wish to add value, prove our worth 
and be rewarded for it in return, then 
we must embrace evidence-based 
practice and insist on evidence for 
decision making. These stances can 
only make us stronger and more 
effective as a profession. 
Ken Haycock is a professor in the School of 
L i b r a ry, Archival and Information Studies 
at the University of British Columbia. 
Issue #1, 2003 • F e l i c i t e r w w w. c l a . c a Canadi an Library Association 4 3 


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Literacy, learning and libraries: Common issues and common concerns

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