In Instruction Deconstruction: Perspectives on Critical Information Literacy with Dustan McNutt, Carrie Donovan, and Anthony Pash, the presenters highlighted the idea of critical social theory: the idea that education doesn’t occur in a vacuum, that “the language and culture of school is the language and culture of the elite.” Carrie Donovan went on to explain that since librarians are not all trained in pedagogy, we think more about the WHAT of what we teach than the HOW and the WHY of what we teach.

Char Booth’s presentation on her invited paper The Librarian as Situated Educator: Instructional Literacy and Participation in Communities of Practice was about four main ideas: communities of practice, situated learning, instructional literacy, and good enough. She defined communities of practice as a group of people who coalesce around an idea (e.g. librarians). Situated learning is what communities of practice do. The communities are drawn closer by sharing experience with those more and less experienced. Instructional literacy is the series of skills that library educators can bring, learning to teach as we go since most of us didn’t learn to teach in graduate school. Char tied this idea to Carrie Donovan’s presentation on thinking about the HOW and the WHY of what we teach, in addition to the WHAT. We should always be reflective after each instruction session, asking ourselves what went right, what went wrong, what can I do better next time, and was this the right way to present to this group. Good enough is the idea that we have to learn to be comfortable being confident educators. All of us are drawn to this profession because we believe in it, so we should believe in ourselves.

She explained, reiterating Carrie Donovan’s ideas, that the better we understand the community of students we teach, the better we will teach. This presentation was so refreshing. I can’t wait to go back into the classroom. My notes are not enough; if this sounds even remotely interesting to you, you must seek out her presentation and watch it yourself. Char Booth was absolutely amazing; it was the best librarian presentation I have ever seen in my life. Go, watch her presentation on ACRL, read her paper, view her slides, read her blog, buy her book. You won’t be sorry.

What I learned:

• Think about the HOW and the WHY of what I teach
• Good enough is good enough in teaching (don’t be a perfectionist)
• Reflect after every session (self-feedback)
• Illustrate to students why the info matters on the larger scale (libraries=freedom)

When I finally found the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies building, I followed the signs directing me to the Friday Forums workshop, All About Copyright: The Basics and Beyond for Academic Librarians. This workshop was presented by Martin Brennan, Copyright and Licensing Librarian at UCLA Library.

I signed up for this workshop because I still had some questions, even though I understand copyright law reasonably well. In the course of my graduate education at Syracuse University, I had a class called Telecommunications and Information Policy. During this class, I wrote a paper on Fair Use, but I focused on its implications for public libraries, not academic ones.

Now that I work in an academic library, I have questions that need answering. The question I posed to Martin Brennan during introductions was: how do you decide what can go on e-reserves and what must go in a course pack?

Martin’s presentation was surprisingly interesting for such a dry and frustrating topic. He started with the history of copyright and worked his way through to what we face nowadays. He highlighted the sections of the law that effect academic librarians most, including sections 107 (fair use), 108 (reproduction by libraries and archives), 109 (first sale doctrine), and 110 (educational uses), and how to protect authors’ rights when publishing.

Section 110, or the TEACH (Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization) Act of 2002, most relates to the question I asked. It means to govern the use of copyright material in: distance education, hybrid courses (in-person and online), and e-reserves run by academic libraries. The copyrighted material “should be limited to the students in the class to the extent technologically feasible,” or password protected and only while the student is enrolled in the class. In order for this defense to work in court, the educational institution must:

• be accredited and nonprofit
• institute policies regarding copyright
• provide informational materials on copyright compliance to faculty and staff
• provide notice to students that materials in class may be subject to copyright protection
• must not store the digital copies beyond period of transmission
• must apply technological measures to reasonably prevent:
  • access beyond the class session
  • unauthorized further dissemination
• must not interfere with technological protection measures in the copyrighted material

Martin also explained that UCLA Library provided conservative guidelines for fair use in e-reserves (which are no longer used because of their conservative nature): one article from each journal, one chapter from each book, one poem from each anthology, etc. More might be okay, but it becomes less clear. These are (almost) definitely fair use cases. If an instructor wants to use any more than that, it’s probably best that they provide course packs for the students to buy.

Two of the many useful handouts I received from this workshop are definitely going into my arsenal:

• Checklist for Fair Use from IUPUI’s Copyright Management Center
• Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States from Cornell’s Copyright Information Center

What copyright questions do you have? Does your institution have an e-reserve policy? Do you have any favorite copyright tools?

The Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture at this year’s ALA Midwinter Conference was presented by Al Gore. What would such a famous speaker and activist say? How would he connect the crisis of global warming to libraries? I had high hopes.

“If you want a book to be signed, you have to buy them over there before the lecture!” This was my greeting outside the convention center ballroom as staffers gesticulated towards a bookstand. The tone was set, and the room filled quickly.

Gore started his lecture by acknowledging the suffering and destruction in Haiti. Empathy, he explained, is one of the most powerful emotions tying humans together. He asked us to empathize with future generations and consider the kinds of destruction they will inevitably face if we don’t act decisively to save the environment.

“Save libraries!” I was thinking. “Prevent global warming and the destruction of libraries!” What kind of world would this be without libraries?

Gore outlined our options for prevention, covering each chapter of his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, except the one chapter that was relevant to libraries and librarians.

Surely, the majority of the people in that room had already seen An Inconvenient Truth. The lecture did not stray very far from the same information. What if he had paid the most attention to the one chapter he skipped? Wouldn’t that have been inspiring and energizing?

I left the lecture feeling frustrated and dismayed. This presentation was another symptom of what I feel is a larger problem with ALA conferences. Bonnie Swoger wrote in the Undergraduate Science Librarian that “there is a disconnect between the library world and the research world.” I feel that a similar gap exists between libraryland and the technology, design, and marketing worlds.

Getting such big names as Al Gore to speak at our conferences is awesome, but let’s make it even better by inviting them to talk about their ideas relating to our profession. Let’s take the opportunity to hear something new.

We need to hear from our users, as Bonnie suggests, but we also need to hear from experts outside the library world to help us move forward and keep up with the ever-changing landscape our libraries are part of. We need futurists, philosophers, economists, designers, and technologists to speak at our conferences. We need to hear it from the horse’s mouth — what will effect us.

I still think librarians are a great source for programming at ALA, but I want diversity of thought. I don’t want canned presentations or recycled discussions. I think the change would help us keep up and maybe even change our general image from “behind the times” to “in the know.”

There have been some big changes afoot: I am now engaged, I left my job in Rochester, and I’ve moved across the country. We moved to Los Angeles for my fiancé to pursue his Masters in Interactive Media Design (AKA game design) at the University of Southern California, and he starts this Fall semester. We’ve been here for a little over a week so far. Things are starting to settle now, but we still have a bit to iron out. I am unemployed again as the searching and applying for jobs in this area has not yet returned any rewards. I still have a lot to do.

ALA Annual is coming up! This will be my third consecutive ALA Annual Conference, and, since I was accepted to a LITA committee for the 2009-2011 term, I will be going to at least 3 more ALA conferences in the near future (including Mid-Winter). As a bonus this year, I will be roommates with none other than the Library Scenester. (Aren’t you envious?) With the lovely Erin around, I’m sure to have a fantastic time.

The LITA committee I will participate in after this upcoming ALA Annual Conference is the Program Planning Committee. My use of Twitter (@library_chan) and information from other librarians I follow were instrumental to my volunteering and getting accepted to the committee.

I follow several people on Twitter who are very involved in the American Library Association. As most know, Jenny Levine (@shifted) works for them, but Amy Harmon (@infowidget) was, and continues to be, an ALA Councilor-at-Large. I also follow Jason Griffey (@griffey), a very active member of LITA and the Program Planning Committee Chair. Aaron Dobbs (@awd) helped me greatly via Twitter. An active LITA and ALA member (and now an ALA Councilor-at-Large — congrats!), he lobbied the LITA president to include me in a LITA committee. Thanks, Aaron!

How did this come about? During the past ALA Mid-Winter Conference, many people were tweeting from sessions and meetings. In particular, Amy Harmon tweeted from ALA Council meetings and encouraged more of us to get involved. Though I love going to the conferences, I find the ALA hierarchy mind-boggling, and I had preconceptions about the inner-workings of ALA and its divisions. Amy Harmon’s call for more involvement coincided nicely with an announcement from the LITA Twitter account that LITA was looking for committee volunteers. What better way to get involved in ALA than to pick one of the most interesting and exciting ALA divisions? So I joined LITA (finally!) and signed up (and tweeted about signing up)!