Et tu Trivial Pursuit?

As a former staffer of an independent game store I mourn the recent sale of Trivial Pursuit to Hasbro. I have mixed feelings about what we consider a Canadian success story ending with a multinational game company taking over the future development of Trivial Pursuit. Will there be future Canadian editions of Trivial Pursuit? Is there enough of a profit for Hasbro or we will be condemned to answering questions about presidents rather than prime ministers? (even if 90% of such questions were answered with Pierre Trudeau) It’s bad enough the Disney owns the rights to the Mountie image, yep that’s right. Here’s hoping that there was a contractual codicil insisting that Canadian versions be ongoing and updated. (please no more Bryan Adams questions for the love of God) My family may assume that I have selfish motives in this plea but in truth I can kick their butts at American, Canadian, or any other version of Trivial Pursuit they dare to buy.

Student centered or not

I recently interviewed with another institution of higher learning and I realized something about my workplace.  We may move at a glacial pace to provide services to students but we do so for a couple of reasons.

• We want to ensure that the services operate the way we say they will so students don’t become frustrated.
• We want to provide the best services that we can within the limits of our resources.

One of the things that does strike me about our library in particular is this, we want our students to come in and use us.  To do so we created many collaborative spaces and tried to give students the physical and technological spaces they need to do their work and play.  This includes services like laptop checkout, wireless network access, as well as the physical tables and chairs.  As a result our library can be noisy, which can be disconcerting to certain librarians, some faculty, and students who still perceive libraries as sanctuaries of silence.

Personally I love the noise, it symbolizes the way the library has been incorporated by students into their lives.  It isn’t always pretty but that noise indicates that we are meaningful to students and this relevance is our strength.  We are their lunchroom, printshop, meeting space, Facebook and MySpace access point, and we are important to their lives.  We will always be providers of information, technology, and we will always provide instruction, reference, and resources.  Shouldn’t we be thinking of services that support the ways that students already use us?

Excuses, excuses

You know its been too long since you posted when you forget not only your password but your login for your blog as well.  I have no real excuse for it being so long between posts other than I have been reading my students’ blog posts and I feel like I need to put up posts that are as well thought out and focussed on academic libraries.  I have abandoned two different posts on the Texas primary elections as well as having begun more than a few that continued my thinking about colleague roulette.

Chairing a search committee has me thinking about our interview process and what it tells candidates about us as an organization.  One of our candidates described their perfect workplace being a learning organization.  A chime went off for me as one of our class readings addressed the topic of organizational culture.   We live and breathe in a culture of learning but the presumption often is that it is student learning that we are addressing.  While central to our purposes  student learning can’t and shouldn’t replace our own learning.  Library administration should not only be supporting their staff’s learning opportunities they should be proactive in determining what those needs might be both now and in the future.  One of my students said this on the topic of whether bureaucracies could ever be learning organizations.

“In order for a library bureaucracy to become a learning organization, I think the first step must be to reject the business management models.”

Another had this to say,

“Strong efforts made to improve communication with not just one way, but two way communication models in place. Every member of the library needs to be valued and their role appreciated.”

and finally

“There are times when any institution will fail to move ahead of the curve of innovation. Those failures are great learning experiences, if we are willing to apply the lessons and change. Commitment to the overall vision for the library from the top down and the bottom up can still create an environment which will richly serve our patrons.”

I will always learn more from my students and their intelligent engagement with their coursework than they learn from me and this exchange enriches me immeasurably.