"Where Are Your Urban Dictionaries?"

“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 resources. Add to this an admitted difficulty in distinguishing between a reference resource and a non-fiction informational text, and my brain became very busy thanks to a single, smile-inducing student interaction. So, let’s unpack my brain, shall we?

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I have recently realized that when I heard the term “reference resource” I thought of most non-fiction texts; I pictured any book whose purpose is to convey factual information to the reader for the purpose of learning, but in a serious way (so, not books like Guinness World Records or the Weird But True! Series) and in a “short” reading experience (so no memoirs, biographies, or other “novel style” texts). I eventually decided I needed to actually clarify the differences, and the Milner Library website from Illinois State University helped me with the distinction: a reference resource provides a broad overview of a topic rather than a deep dive and will provide a synthesis of information across a topic; non-fiction is “information or events that are fact or real life experiences”(Milner Library). Admittedly, their definition of non-fiction isn’t exactly enlightening, but their point that a reference resource is a broader overview was helpful to my understanding. 

The next piece of my brain that I need to unpack has to do with the size of the reference collection in my SLLC and my own professional goal with regards to the non-fiction section of the SLLC. I quickly found in my first months as teacher-librarians that many of my students wanted to read non-fiction books but didn’t understand how to find them in the library. I also found that trying to re-shelve and maintain the organization of the non-fiction collection was an increasingly tedious task. Several other teacher-librarians in my district felt similarly, so we formed a collaborative group to “Ditch the Dewey Decimal System” in our libraries. We meet each month to work through the challenges of making this change and discuss ideas. We’ve received a lot of guidance from several TL blogs and articles, the following of which have been especially helpful:

• Ditching Dewey #1: Dear Dewey, It’s Not Me, Its You (Kelsey Bogan)
• Ditching Dewey: My Experience Genrefying My Nonfiction Section (Jennifer De Waelsche)
• Developing a Locally Focused Indigenous Peoples Collection: An Act of Reconciliation (Andrea LaPointe)

E.H. Little Library & Leanne Liang

One thing that hasn’t come up yet though is reference resources, and this could be attributed to several reasons; one of my colleagues is an elementary teacher-librarian so there will be fewer reference resources in her collection, and the other is a teacher-librarian at a brand-new K – 8 school, so her collection is still growing, and her reference collection would likely be needs-based with her teaching staff. When I consider the placement of reference materials in my Dewey-less world, there are a couple ways I could approach it: I could have all physical reference resources in a separate marked section, or they could be split up into the various topic sections (e.g., any reference resources on science could be in a general science section). Before I can make a decision on how I’ll organize them though I will need to know what reference resources are in the SLLC.

I’m incredibly curious to move forward in my Ditching Dewey journey to see what reference resources we have. A large part of this extensive re-organization project is becoming aware of what we have in the SLLC (inventorying) and weeding out what is no longer relevant, appropriate, or used. A major challenge of non-fiction materials though, and especially reference resources, is how long they remain relevant. Early on in her book, Riedling delivers the harsh reality that “print resources are often considered to be out of date before they reach the student;” she specifies that general encyclopedias, most science books, and any books pertaining to technology, inventions, health, or medicine are dated within five years (20). This seems to me a HUGE dilemma – in a school with a large non-fiction collection, I worry that if I were to weed out every book considered outdated that there would be very little left. This then begs the question of is it better to have outdated resources or minimal resources? Budgetarily, it is not possible to regularly replace/update all print resources as they become outdated; a balance must be found. In discussing this with my Ditching Dewey crew at our most recent meeting, my colleagues (who are both experienced teacher-librarians) suggested that the best way to move forward is to know which teachers regularly make use of print resources and focus on making sure those are up to date; there’s no sense spending precious budget dollars on new reference resources that are just going to sit on a shelf unused. 

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I do think the best way to move forward is to make use of online reference resources, because we know that they are able to be updated regularly. I am fortunate in that I don’t need to budget for online reference resources like databases, because my school district has purchased licenses for many different databases for student & teacher use. The biggest role I have with these databases is making sure that the teachers at my school are aware of them and know how to access them. Currently I suspect that not many are aware that these exist as a resource, so I am making it my mission to educate my colleagues on these databases at our next staff meetings. 

Thank you for unpacking my brain with me! If you’ve read this far, I would love to know your thoughts on the value of print reference resources compared to online reference resources. 

Works Cited

Bee32 and Getty Images. “Books and Mondy.” Canva.

Bogan, Kelsey. “Ditching Dewey #1: Dear Dewey, It’s Not Me, Its You.” Don’t Shush Me! Adventures of a 21st Century High School Librarian, 4 Dec. 2020, dontyoushushme.com/2020/12/04/ditching-dewey-1-dear-dewey-its-not-me-its-you.

De Waelsche, Jennifer. “Ditching Dewey: My Experience Genrefying My Nonfiction Section.” Smore, www.smore.com/hez0b-ditching-dewey.

E.H. Little Library. Research Guides: How to Find a Call Number: How to Read a Call Number. davidson.libguides.com/c.php?g=1083606&p=7980117.

LaPointe, Andrea. “Developing a Locally Focused Indigenous Peoples Collection: An Act of Reconciliation.” Canadian School Libraries Journal, vol. 6, no. 3, season-03 2022, journal.canadianschoollibraries.ca/developing-a-locally-focused-indigenous-peoples-collection-an-act-of-reconciliation.

Liang, Leanne. “Vector Confuse Illustration.” Canva.

Milner Library. “Guides: Types of Sources - What’s the Difference: Types of Books.” Illinois State University, guides.library.illinoisstate.edu/comparetypes/typesofbooks.

Riedling, Ann Marlow. Reference Skills for the School Library Media Specialist: Tools and Tips. Amsterdam, Netherlands, Adfo Books, 2005.

taylorswift’snumberonegirl. “Urban Dictionary: Swiftie.” Urban Dictionary, 7 Mar. 2018, www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Swiftie.