Response to Naryn's Musings and Articles

Naryn, I have found your articles and musings extremely reflective and honest. I think you were very perceptive about how students and others view the library,

"Personally, I fall into the category of the student with "little patience for the formal organizational structure of the library", and I certainly prefer google over organized catalogs such as the UBC library."

I feel there is a strong shift and change in the library and how others view it. This is my first year in the library and I| am at the elementary level. I have worked very hard at getting my students connected to the library and teaching them all about the Databases and our catalog. I think they enjoy the searches they have experimented with. But I realize that it has to be taught in each grade every year until it becomes part of their routine.
Many of my students are unsuccessful with Google, yet many of them turn to it first and foremost. The trouble with Google, though I too love it, is that for my young ones the material is way to hard for them. That is why I have encouraged our databases and other search engines geared for kids, etc.

I have also taught our teachers about the databases (one on one), but when I have a moment and have peaked into the lab, while I have classes in the library and other teachers are using it, I do see a lot of Googling! Sometimes it would have been much better to use our resources and databases! Message to self: keep informing the teachers.

Moving up at the higher levels, myself included, I find it difficult at times using the UBC journal databases. For some reason I have to keep changing my keywords to find what I am looking for. I thing catalogers are working harder to change it more to the Google form.

Something you mentioned about no one using the library at your school. At the elementary level one does most of the prep, so the library is used almost to full capacity. Not an ideal format, but the good news is that the kids are in there lots. They love the library, but I wish I could work with the teachers on class projects, so there would be two adults in there. In an ideal world...