Miss M. Reads

“Hi! Mr. Fletcher (pseudonym) told me I could find the definition of ‘Swiftie’ in urban dictionary, so I came down here to the library. Where are the urban dictionaries?” The look of disbelief in this student’s eyes when I chuckled and told him that Urban Dictionary was a website, and not a physical book was fantastic. Don’t you love charming misunderstandings?  After he left though, I thought, how awesome is it that this student recognized the need for a dictionary, and came down to the library to find one instead of turning to a phone or personal device? That then got me thinking further though, that my school library learning commons (SLLC) doesn’t have a large collection of physical reference resources like dictionaries, because the natural go-to nowadays is to look the information up online. This then led me to spend more time waging an internal war over the value of physical reference resources over digital reference resources, and my role as arbiter of library budget and res...

Evaluation of a Reference Work Science 8 is a fascinating curriculum in BC, and never more so than in the past three years. A key content area of the Science 8 curriculum is “the relationship of microorganisms with living things”  ( Building Student Success - B.C. Curriculum ). At the immediate level, the curriculum asks students to look at how diseases and infections impact the human body; at the broader level though, it asks students to take a step back and examine how pandemics and epidemics have impacted human populations. It’s a rare learning experience for students of the past three years, to be learning about how epidemics and pandemics impact the world while seeing the immediate effects of a pandemic in real time with Covid-19. Theoretically, the hope is that the immediacy of the classroom learning in their own lives would help students to become more invested in their learning experiences.  Selecting science reference materials can be a tricky business though. Being a...

Hello! The blog has been revived for a new teacher-librarian course, LIBE 467 Information Services! In hitting the 1/3 mark in the course we’ve been asked to reflect on our first of three themes: the foundation of reference services. In establishing this foundation, the vast scope of responsibility placed on teacher-librarians’ shoulders continues to become more and more apparent. Among these responsibilities are knowledge of different research models; research skills expertise; knowledge of the School Library Learning Commons (SLLC’s) current reference section, including its gaps; the ability to select and evaluate new reference resources for purchase; and the ability to communicate how and where to conduct online research (Riedling, 2005). Keep in mind that these skills are only from the information literacy category of responsibilities for teacher-librarians, and don’t touch on the myriad of other duties and responsibilities expected of our SLLC leaders.  collaboration graphic (...