One of the coolest cultural changes that I am seeing in education lately is that of student ownership. Educators are trying their hardest to get students to take part in their learning. We want them to make their own decisions as far as what and how they learn best. We allow them to create their own projects, we let them do self-assessments, and we allow them to help create rubrics and even classroom rules.
An ideal situation where Library 2.0 is put into action should be similar, with librarians starring as the "teachers" and patrons starring as the "students." With a patron centered library, patrons should feel ownership in the decisions/choices the library makes. I found this article from a guy who calls himself "Superpatron." He has listed ten ways that a patron can make his/her library more useful. It basically encourages patrons to become a part of the decision making process. It makes sense to me.
http://vielmetti.typepad.com/superpatron/2007/05/ten_ways_for_su.html
Amber
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4 comments:
Neat site. I enjoyed his slide presentation on the 10 ways to make your library more useful in your life. Will add his site to my feeds.
It would be great to for libraries to provide patrons with a chance to respond/evaluate their services. Perhaps if a library could get a small volunteer group together who could present reports to the lib. board. Of course, the board would have to listen to and respect what the community was saying. In Bay City, the board ignored the community's feelings about building a new central branch, and then about the location, size, name - essentially ignored every comment made by the community. Their RENEWAL mileage/bond failed and they had to have numerous staff cuts and reduce hours. The more I learn about Lib. 2.0 and library service, the more I wonder what they were thinking to operate this way. Perhaps if they started a patron comment blog, they wouldn't find it so easy to ignore the community.
Yes, there seems to be a natural, what I would call, "facilitator" role implied in the work of librarians. While they help clients find the information that is sought, a good facilitator also involves the client/library patron as an equal and draws out and builds upon their knowledge (e.g., in this case, information on client needs, which may inform future services provided). This approach serves to remove some of the perceptions about librarians (I've seen voiced in some readings) as "gatekeepers" to the information or "owning" the information. This facilitator role is very much in tune with Library 2.0's collaborative approaches.
I think these ideas are great for small to mid-size communities, but I wonder how this would work in a larger urban library. What I sometimes wonder about patron centered change is how do you make changes to meet the needs of a diverse patron population.
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