21st Century School Library Staffing Model

At my school, and I am sure around the world, there is much discussion about how the traditional library might transform itself into a "learning commons"or "resource centre". But what about the staffing model? You can't just plonk the old staff with old habits into a new area and expect them to be progressive!

Isn't the Vennesla Library and Culture House gorgeous!

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It was with this conundrum in mind that I came across an interesting article by David Weinberger about using the "Library" (commons/resource centre/hub) as a platform for incubating knowledge, ideas and passions.

How do I use social networking?

I have a big digital footprint personally and professionally.  At the moment I have a number of social media accounts. I have noticed that if they are not hooked up to my smartphone, then I tend not to use them as much.

Social Networking Tool	Personal	Work
Facebook	I have a personal account that I use to communicate with friends. Of which I am not going to link to here!	I have a business page in Facebook but not an account associated with my role as a Teacher Librarian.
Flickr		Konstant Kaos business images
Instagram	Record my adventures	Images that are pertinent to work or school
LinkedIn		Professional presence and record of my work experience
Twitter A microblogging tool which limits your posts to 140 characters. Use the hashtag to indicate the topic of your tweet.		Konstantkaos twitter pushes out links to my crafty business blog. Infowhelm twitter pushes out links from my Infowhelm blog or links to do with library and information systems.
Livejournal	Totally private and personal journalling site.
Diigo		Professional, but I don’t necessarily like using it. The scattergun approach to tagging bookmarked sites is not something that I enjoy doing! I would probably much prefer to do a blog post on an article that I have found interest in.

What is Social Networking?

From my perspective and experience, social networking is all about connections and relationships using a variety of mediums.

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In Himanen's book "The hacker ethic and the spirit of the information age", he talks about the work culture of the programmer who lives and breathes their passion. To me, social networking is very similar to the connections and relationships within the programming community. When a programmer is "in the flow" they can't stop thinking about their project.

People that are active in various social networking environments are the same. They are always thinking "what can I share", "who can I connect with". With the development of smart phones, the ease of use, intractability and ease of connection has made the environment addictive for many people. For the school librarian, the use of these tools enables us to reach out and connect with our clientele. The electronic environment, allows us to gather metrics and respond in a timely manner.

My first experience with social networking was in the early 90's with my exposure to bulletin board systems (BBS) when I was doing computer science at Melbourne Uni.

Whilst there is no hard evidence on how this phrase embedded itself into our vernacular, there is no doubt that it's infiltration is aided by what Himanen has coined as the "hacker work ethic".

My history of engaging socially online, a trip down memory lane.

I have started the INF506 elective at Charles Sturt University this semester.

If you know me online, you will know that I have a huge digital presence. My history of engaging socially online started back in 1990. This is from the perspective of someone in Melbourne Australia. If you were in American at this time AOL had a greater presence.

Much to my parents dismay, I used to run a telephone line from my bedroom into my parents kitchen and then dial-up using a modem to chat with people via a Melbourne based BBS - Fidonet. If you were lucky you could connect with a BBS that allowed you to bounce out and find other BBS’s around the world without having to dial overseas.

The Wisdom Network

I stumbled across this book as part of the research for the subject that I am doing - INF506: Social Networking for Information Professionals


Benton, Giovagnoli. (2006). The Wisdom Network: An 8-step process for identifying, sharing and leveraging individual expertise. 












A few ideas jumped out at me, as I scanned through the book in regards to Teacher Librarians

Experts in Hiding

Within our school libraries we need energetic and passionate staff if we are going to survive. Gone are the quiet environments where the only focus of the Librarian is the books that they can provide you with. Staff have varied interests, hobbies and passions but are we capitalising on these? Should we? How can we do this without exploiting them? Can we take the mundane tasks away from them and allow them the space to do be able to nurture their passions? Will this make a difference to the way that Teacher Librarians interact with the school community?

Magnet Topics

The idea of "magnet topics" and how they draw people together and get them discussing. At one point there was an informal gathering of people in the staff room at my school on a Friday afternoon. We would crack open a bottle of red and we would generally talk about work and those "magnet topics". I am not sure when this stopped or why. But those informal networks go offsite now as little cliques, and so do the discussions. Where as before, anyone could join in "pull up a chair and join us", now the topics are being discussed offsite. I have fond memories of the first few years at the school when I could share a glass of red with some of the management team in these informal gatherings and gain a greater understanding of how and why decisions are being made.

I would claim that this has had an impact on how staff network and get to know each other. Magnet topics are also found in social networking sites (this is my area of research at the moment) and ideally a school intranet forum would be used to engage staff in discussion, but then comments from staff will be "on record". Corporate Social Networking tools such as Yammer provide organizations with the interactivity to leverage this new way of communicating without adding unneeded infrastructure.

Sometimes when teachers are fleshing through ideas a formal and structured environment is not the one to do it in. What are your school's "magnet topics" and how can the School Library create this environment to "chew the fat"? 

Performance Management

Encouraging leaders within the organisation to initiate their own performance management criterion. How of the middle managers regularly seek feedback from their team? Whist we are talking about professional learning standards for teachers, do our managers have the skills to manage their own performance.

Leading with Evidence is a philosophy that I respect, "give me the data" is a common expression for me. With data we can make informed decisions, we can measure, we can improve.