Reference Services: The Realities and Challenges

LIBE 467 Theme 2: Blog Post

                          Collaboration by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

What stayed with me from the first lesson of our learning on theme 2, was that being proactive could improve the success of the reference interview. One of the important ways to be proactive is through collaboration in planning and teaching of information literacy skills so that students can find maximum success. Even though Riedling does not stress it, collaborating with classroom teachers in the planning of research units and teaching research skills to students would be helpful. Haycock (2007) concludes that “Collaboration is not easy. But collaboration is the single professional behavior of teacher-librarians that most affects student achievement” (32). Last week a class arrived in the library to do “research” using the laptops and the internet. The teacher arrived approximately 15 minutes after the students. They had all begun work on their projects. As I circulated it became obvious that their teacher had made several assumptions about their level of skill. The students really were unsure about reliable websites and currency. I thought about the statement in our class notes, "Why many teachers don't consider the key role of the teacher-librarian when the assigning research/reference work to students is a question that has plagued us for years” (Beaudry, 2019, class notes). Later on in the class it became apparent that some of the students had no idea how to print. Had I been in the class even to explain the process for printing, this alone could have alleviated significant stress for the students and saved much time that would have allowed me to engage with students in reference interviews. Some of the students ended up feeling like they were unable to complete the task as assigned. Twenty minutes of time before the students started their research would have saved hours of individual explanations and would have resulted in greater student success. You never want the students’ first experience in the learning commons to be a frustrating one.

           Leinonen, S. (2017, December 3). 7 principles of teamwork for teacher  

                               collaboration (T.A.R.G.E.T.S.).  

In the second and third parts of the theme, the overwhelming amount of work to manage the reference collection became apparent. As I reflected on the Role of the Teacher-Librarian I realized that a plan to manage the budget and organization of the reference resources was very important. In the class notes lesson 6, there is a list of stages in collection development. When I looked at my role in the LLC, I realized that I was doing many of the stages for different sections of the library collection at the same time. For example, the grade 9 class does a unit on planets. Last year, along with the science teacher, we analyzed the books in the collection for the project. We weeded the ones that were no longer accurate and were in poor condition. In collaboration with the science teacher, I have purchased some new materials. This is just a small section of the collection and much needs to be done in other sections as well. The circular nature of the stages of collection development means that it is an ongoing process. I am looking forward to working with the social studies teachers and applying the collection management activities to parts of the reference section. 

Beaudry, R. (2019). LIBE 467: Lesson 5: The reference interview: Cooperative program planning and teaching for personalized inquiry. Class notes. Retrieved from: https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/41996/pages/lesson-5-the-reference-interview-cooperative-program-  planning-and-teaching-for-personalized-inquiry?module_item_id=1308253

Haycock, K. (2007). Collaboration: Critical success factors for student learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 13(1), 25–35.

Leinonen, S. (2017, December 3). 7 principles of teamwork for teacher collaboration  (T.A.R.G.E.T.S.).  Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://youtu.be/qx95qRuZA9Y.

Youngson, N. (n.d.). Collaboration. Alpha Stock Images. Photograph. Retrieved from http://www.picpedia.org/highway-signs/c/collaboration.htm