My favorite TLA session

Well, it has been a week, but I didn't want to let too much time go by before writing a little about the Texas Library Association Annual Conference this year. As usual, there was much to see, hear, and do. I was able to attend several sessions and found something that would be useful in all of them. Today, I am going to recount my favorite, along with an aha moment that I had yesterday. I will write about some additional sessions next week, because my next big thing is going to be college prep!

My favorite session this time around was Books as Hooks to the Library of Congress Online Resources by Gail Petri. This presentation was full of good ideas, and also resources available at the LOC that you don't have to create! The problem is that a number of teachers and librarians don't know what all is there, so the LOC is trying to get the word out. Gail also showed us a template we could use to take her ideas a step further. First of all, you need to go to the LOC page. Click on the links for Librarians and Teachers and explore a little. It might blow your mind! Lesson plans, resource guides, and much much more.

Now, for the main point of Gail's presentation. She took children's and YA books and gathered resources to pique readers' interests and start discussions about them. Take a look at her Powerpoint and handouts here. She collected photographs, letters, and other primary source documents that were tied to the book somehow through theme, time period, historical event or person, etc. She also showed us that there are some themed resource pages on the LOC site. I think the great thing here is that you can take her idea to create your own "themed" collections from the LOC to go with units that your teachers use as a value added service or research extension. When I have shown students the collections at the LOC, they are almost always overwhelmed. There is just so much stuff. However, by putting a few things in a mini collection, you could make primary sources more accessible to students and teachers, who don't have the time to search the LOC.
Now for my personal aha moment. I was doing some research yesterday for a college and career preparation seminar that a friend and I are writing, and I came across this article. Please read the whole thing if you have the time, but here are the main points:

• The author explains several theories of information literacy
• He posits that maybe good teachers are already building that in, and that it is redundant, nay even ineffective, for libraries to teach information literacy separately. (this is not new, I know that you know that.)
• He suggests that perhaps the role of libraries needs to shift from traditional information literacy instruction to a newer, more integrated role in school wide (university wide in his case) instruction and learning.
• Students learn information literacy through ALL their subjects, over the course of their academic career ...wait for it...
• He says, maybe students don't need access to huge numbers of resources to make information decisions or to learn well in undergraduate classes. Maybe they need instructor selected (or possibly librarian selected--this is my insertion) lists of fewer, quality resources chosen for pedogogical purposes to learn well. He does not suggest not allowing students access to the larger library collections, but helping them by narrowing their focus, and making it possible for them to deal with the quantity of information available.

This fits in well with Gail's ideas about tying primary sources to another hook. The whole LOC is too big, but what if we select a few items for students to whet their appetite? Make it possible for them to learn. A few of them may go back on their own and look for more, but all of them will have at least learned something from using the sources selected for the learning purpose. This may not seem like a big idea to you, but to me it is. We are constantly being told to provide access, access, access. But there is more to critical thinking than just looking at sheer numbers of resources. Really examining a few, well-chosen items will probably teach kids more than turning them loose on the Internet. Another article I read recently (sorry, cannot remember where) also discussed a librarian's role as a selector or collector of online resources. The author proposed helping patrons by creating collections of good websites on different topics for them. Wait, doesn't that sound a lot like pathfinders?... Now, how to get everyone on board with this...