Keeping the Angry Birds at Bay: The Art of Delicate Librarianship

Many people have their own opinion about the way governance should work in their country. Given the U.S.' current divided political climate it can be very difficult to find anyone that doesn't have strong opinions on either side. Librarians, of course, have their own opinions and ideas, as well. However, expressing them, on the job, is not always acceptable. Sure we get together and sign petitions and picket and email like angry birds when our budgets are threatened, and thereby our jobs. However, outside of budgetary concerns, we're really supposed to be kind of mum when interacting with our patrons on political issues. So, when an interesting political movement comes along, of which many people have questions and are looking for resources, we have to provide suitable information while trying to be, or at least appearing to be, neutral. No matter what side of the spectrum we lean, this can be a challenge. 

So this came up recently for a couple of us, and I love the result. We've started doing some really general resource guides, (I hate using the term LibGuide because only librarians know what that means and we're not making these things for each other -or at least we shouldn't be most of the time). As a sort of off-shoot of the marketing committee we've decided to try to post resource guides on our web page about newsworthy and/or hot button topics. Professors are often discussing these events in their classrooms and so providing a tool like this is a great marketing tool, as well as instructional and research tool.

Amanda Youngbar, my partner in crime on this endeavor, made a few suggestions and we both got really excited about creating one for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Seeing as how this group has stirred up a lot of debate we wanted to be fair to the group, those genuinely interested in understanding the movement, as well as those opposed. After looking at a number of guides already available, we also realized that with something like a "movement" there is an ebb and flow to the news information available. So we felt challenged to try to provide resources that continually aggregated information on OWS, as opposed to just a news article here and one from there, that would be outdated in a week. Unfortunately we were unable to pin-point a site from the opposition that continually aggregated news pieces, so the guide might seem a tad unbalanced. That said, we added a disclaimer at the top, introducing the guide and asking those that examine the links, to do so with a grain of salt.

And so blossomed our immediately popular Occupy Wall Street Resource Guide. I must admit, that this might be the first time I've been a part of putting a resource guide like this together, to which even I return repeatedly for the information. It was really nice to participate in something of a somewhat delicate nature that seemed to come out so well. The popularity of the guide soared from the moment we started publicizing it. I hope it continues to provide the information people are looking for on this topic and I think we provided a nice template for addressing hot button issues in the future. Cheers, Amanda!

Art Liaison Yammerings

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'm the new Art+Design liaison. Art has been a constant in my life since I was a kid, so I'm really enjoying my duties. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of the few ways to shut my usual yammering mouth up is to throw me inside a museum for a few hours and promise me a meal after. (The meal being the essential component where I will commence yammering about what I saw; what I loved, what I hated or what I just didn't understand.)  As for all of the growing online image databases, that is a sure-fire way for me to lose myself for an hour or two, (eeek! job hazard!). Speaking of which, have you seen, Art Project, powered by Google? Brilliant! Love it!

So, given my new duties, I have new classes to teach. Occasionally I've been able to find some background information on what the previous Art liaison did for a class or assignment, however, I've found constructing a class, and paying attention to the needs of the instructor along with her/his assignment is much better done when I come up with something original. All the same, that takes some serious time. I've been trying to curtail this, but I'm super careful and methodical about every single detail I put into every session. It's like a bad OCD thing. I have been driving myself batty this semester with the class planning.  I realize that it's because this is my first semester teaching these classes, but man oh man can I go overboard.

This is what I do. I usually start out with the PowerPoint. It generally includes a cheesy joke or silly image, followed with the agenda. At the same time I start the Powerpoint, I usually begin the handout. I try to create a handout that includes activities that coincide with the PowerPoint and are all skills needed in order to complete the student's assignment. After the handout and PowerPoint are done I put together a webpage on the library site that we call a Course Gateway. It's something like a LibGuide, and is specific to the class and their research assignment. It includes all of the resources we review in class and either links or call no's with information about each item and where it can be located. The in-class activities always require the students to find and use the Course Gateway. Easy, right? Notsomuch.

Here's a course guide I created for a digital art class. Their assignment was to find iconic high resolution images and photoshop them in some way to say something new.  I had a lot of fun with that. For the in-class activity I had them break into groups and find specific images in different databases and then use the reference books to give the class further information about the works. Lordy, do I love making students use books. Especially the ones that walk in and say, 

"I've never been in this building before." (You, my friend, have just become the designated book-information-looker-upper.)

This photograph by Gordon Parks has two titles, one of which is, "Ella Watson" "American Gothic," is not one of the official titles, but a title by which it is often wrongly referred.

I also really enjoy employing strategic trickery (heh heh). I misspell things intentionally or give a common name for an image, instead of the actual name.  I find false information on wikipedia and have them compare that to what the books say.  I can't help it! I know they are going to make those same mistakes on their own, so it's better for them to have that experience in the classroom first. But, in order to do all of that, I have to try every activity from every angle that a student might try in order to imagine how they might land at a given outcome. That takes some serious pre-planning.

Anyway, I'm sure this takes most people a few hours to come up with, but it takes me days. DAYS, I tell you! (And at least one time a whole week of really loooooong days.)  And it is so not worth it when all I get are blank stares throughout and after class. But, it is so worth it when students thank me afterward. It makes me warm in the heart of my body. They learned something, right?

Question: If you mash cooked yams, is the end result, "Yammerings?"