- Email: [email protected]
Rethinking Information Work: A Career Guide for Librarians and Other Information Professionals
Out Front with Stephen Abram: A Guide for Information Leaders, by Stephen Abram, compiled by Judith A. Siess and Jonathan Lorig. Chicago: American Library Association, 2007. 204 p. $40. ISBN 13 978-0-8389-0932-4. LC 2006031410. Meet Stephen Abram-former President of the Canadian Library Association, advocate of cutting-edge information technology, early proponent of Library 2.0, outspoken defender of the millennial generation’s new-style multitasking, and one of North America’s foremost library conference speakers. As early as 2002, Library Journal named Abrams as one of its top fifty important library movers and shakers. The book’s compilers, Judith A. Seiss and Jonathan Lorig, consider him one of the most outstanding library leaders in today’s fastmoving, paradigm-shifting library environment. In their view, he is the man, the person we should all be listening to and reading–the best voice out there to help librarians understand where they are, who they are, and what they are facing in the years ahead. Out Front with Stephen Abram compiles the best of Abram’s articles and lecture notes. The volume divides his writings into four sections: advocacy, technology, generations, and the future. The sections feature Abram in a variety of formats. He lectures at conferences, sounds off on his blog, the Lighthouse, writes peer-reviewed journal articles, and addresses library associations of various sorts. Of course, Abram is at his best discussing technology and delineating the new generation-what Abram and others have labeled the New Millennials. He wants to see librarians reckon with this new generation and the newfangled era in which they live, to celebrate its diversity, connectivity, and exuberance. Where some fear that today’s students read too little and understand less, Abram praises the new generation’s multitasking and technical savvy. ‘‘They can think rings around us,’’ he says. Where others see continuity in the human experience between generations, Abram sees divergence. Dylan said it all. ‘‘The times are a-changin’.’’ Where others worry about the dangers of technology, Abram marvels at its transforming power. For him technology liberates. So there you have him–Abrams out front talking about technology and the new approaches to learning, all the while taking on slothful librarians and backward-looking bibliophiles. The man has little patience with those whose values or perspectives are wedded to the past. He revels in what lies ahead. He has yet to meet a digital technology he does not like. All in all, the slender volume has the virtue of distilling Abram, and I am thankful that the compilers have pulled together such an interesting assortment of his writings. The volume’s flaws are at worst, only minor. The editors wisely include a biography of Abrams, but it should have been longer and more detailed. Their cryptic sketch only leaves the reader yearning for more. The compilers’ chapter introductions also tend to be a bit hagiographic. Judith Siess and Jonathan Lorig are certainly right about Abram’s brilliance. He is a significant library figure, but that is a conclusion they should have allowed their readers to draw. Putting such quibbles aside, however, there is no gainsaying the book’s value as a solid introduction and a first-rate primer for this jet-hopping conference speaker and leading library figure. Fun to read, entertaining, loaded with insight, Upfront with Stephen Abram, has a lot to offer. It is almost like being
there. The book is the next best thing to listening to Abram in person or to perusing his Web blog.—Steve McKinzie, Library Director, Catawba College, Salisbury, NC 28147 [email protected]. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.004
Rethinking Information Work: A Career Guide for Librarians and Other Information Professionals, by G. Kim Dority. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2006. 222 p. $38. ISBN 159158-180-X. G. Kim Dority, an adjunct faculty member of the University of Denver graduate program in Library and Information Science at the Morgridge School of Education, teaches courses in Information Entrepreneurship and Career Alternatives for Library Science Students and Professionals. This work, chock-full of inspirational content and presented succinctly in a go-getting, no-nonsense style, was crafted from her preparation and experiences with these courses, particularly the latter, Career Alternatives, course. The ample references are indeed worth noting and include standards from the LIS field (e.g., SLA’s 2003 Competencies For Information Professionals of the 21 st Century) as well as an astonishing number of titles from the outside (e.g., University of Chicago Psychologist’s Mikaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on creativity, Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence, or Oprah’s featured columnist, life coach Martha Beck’s work). Geared toward new recruits and seasoned practitioners alike, Dority’s book succeeds in providing a framework to enable all library professionals to craft a career plan that maximizes their ‘‘employability’’ (see definition, p. 4) and gives flexibility to withstand continuous changes in the workplace. As Dority elaborates ‘‘The goal is to design a career flexible enough that it can grow with you, rather than keep you from growing (p. 81).’’ Reflecting the search process from start to finish, the book is nicely divided into ten chapters (Rethinking Information Work, Self-Knowledge: Your Career Starting Point, The Traditional Path, the Nontraditional Path, The Independent Path, Creating Your Professional Portfolio, Growing Your Career, Thriving on Change, Creating Your Career Map, and Taking Charge of Your Career) that outline the content of the book. With seemingly boundless enthusiasm for her topic, Dority begins by stressing self-knowledge and, to that end, advocates a battery of possibilities for self-exploration including personality testing (through the Myers-Briggs), interviewing established professionals in the field, and keeping a career journal. Dority’s definition of information work is categorized into three areas or paths: the traditional path (in public, school, academic or special libraries), the nontraditional path (as an embedded knowledge worker in a corporation or nonprofit), and the independent path (as a self-employed entrepreneur) exploring the merits and drawbacks of each. While imploring readers to always consider what value they bring to any enterprise, in succeeding chapters Dority models strong ‘‘action’’ verbs throughout the book in creating a portfolio (instead of a conventional resume), growing a career, thriving on change, creating a career map, and simply taking charge. According to Dority, this entails developing confidence in one’s skills. She writes, ‘‘Traditionally, the LIS dacculturation September 2007 613
processT has rarely included assertiveness training, self-esteem strengthening, confidence building, or risk-taking among its professional development priorities (p. 124).’’ Readers should note that Dority’s emphasis on employability and her resilient optimism flies in the face of a conventional wisdom that has dictated huge barriers for professional who wish to change jobs between the traditional paths (let alone the nontraditional or independent). Perhaps the times are changing. Dority’s book is not rehabilitation for the sour, the cynical, or the hopeless and readers will find no soothing or stroking for excuses or bad breaks here. Professionals with looming employment issues are better served with Montgomery and Cook’s Conflict Management for Libraries (ALA, 2005); younger professionals also will want to consult Gordon’s The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide (Information Today, 2006) in addition to this work. Rethinking Information Work is highly recommended for all relevant collections and all professionals seeking employment in today’s workplaces.—Christy Zlatos, Manager, Holland and Terrell Reference Services, Terrell Library Room 120L, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA 99164-5610 [email protected]. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.005
Teaching Information Literacy Skills to Social Sciences Students and Practitioners: A Casebook of Applications, edited by Douglas Cook and Natasha Cooper. Chicago: American Library Association, 2006. 277 p. $39. ISBN 08389-8389-8. A plethora of example assignments, lesson plans, and course outlines exists within the research of librarianship. That said, a compilation of thorough cases is always an important contribution to the body of literature. A revisited and revised version of the 1995 edition, Teaching Information Literacy Skills goes beyond instruction for education students to include a variety of social science disciplines. This collection even makes a move beyond text-based information literacy instruction, making this an innovative and well-designed casebook from a variety of qualified contributors. This edition’s uniform style and structure help readers to compare and contrast individual lessons included throughout the book. Even though it appears that a user would most likely consult individual chapters that pertained to their own duties in librarianship, it would do instruction librarians good to read through all of the lessons to see the variety and experience in each. It should be noted that these chapters are truly more than individual lesson plans of the individual instruction sessions. The authors include honest reflections on what worked and what did not, while also offering ways to advance or improve the instruction in the future. It was especially promising to see so many of the information literacy instructional designs include more than one fifty-minute session with students. All of these cases demonstrated strong collaborations between teaching faculty and librarians, as well as intensive planning. As part of the book’s standardized organization, each lesson is correlated to specific objectives within the ACRL Information Literacy Standards to provide a framework for instruction. Each chapter includes an ‘‘Analysis of the Learning Situation’’
614 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
where one can find descriptions of teaching facilities and notes about individual campuses. Many of the cases include specific kinds of technology used during instruction and detailed active learning exercises for adaptation in other settings. While most of the courses targeted in this monograph include those you would expect in a work dedicated to the social sciences (like communications, education, and psychology), audiences are not limited to undergraduates. Some lessons detail collaborative work geared to more diverse learning populations, such as graduate students, international students, distance education students, and teacher candidates. It should be noted as well that this book includes lessons that address information literacy beyond a text-based learning environment, including a welldefined lesson on visual literacy and one that focuses on data literacy. As a whole, Teaching Information Literacy Skills provides a variety of opportunities for those in the social sciences and beyond. It will also be useful for those in other disciplines as both a way to generate new ideas in your teaching, collaborations with faculty, and formats to facilitate instruction design. Within the information literacy instruction literature, this is a welcome addition and likely to encourage imitators of equal competence, clarity, and comprehensiveness.—Michelle S. Millet, Information Literacy Coordinator, Coates Library, Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX, 78212-7200 [email protected]. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.006
The Twelfth Off-Campus Library Services Conference Proceedings, edited by Julie Garrison. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Information Press, 2007. 593 p. $90.00. ISBN 978-07890-3477-9. Co-sponsored by Central Michigan University (CMU) OffCampus Library Services and CMU Off-Campus Programs, the biennial Off-Campus Library Services Conferences offer peerreviewed presentations related to the provision of library services for remote users. The Twelfth Off-Campus Library Services Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers that were presented at the 12th biennial conference in Savannah, Georgia in April 2006. The 12th OCLS Conference presentations consists of 28 Contributed Papers, three Contributed Workshops, and eight Contributed Electronic Posters. Articles within each section are arranged alphabetically by author. In addition, there is a Contributor Index and a general Index. The documents in the Contributed Papers section cover topics of interest to academic librarians who provide services to remote users in a variety of learning environments, including online instruction, hybrid courses, off-site classrooms, and branch campuses. Most of the examples are from library services in the United States, but there is some representation from Canada and the West Indies. Many of the articles deal with utilizing technology to serve off-campus users. These range from Web site evaluation, blogging, orientation CD’s, course management software, the need for e-books to downloadable resources for handheld devices. Consistent with past volumes of OCLS Conference Proceedings, many of the articles treat important topics of discussion in
there. The book is the next best thing to listening to Abram in person or to perusing his Web blog.—Steve McKinzie, Library Director, Catawba College, Salisbury, NC 28147 [email protected]. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.004
Rethinking Information Work: A Career Guide for Librarians and Other Information Professionals, by G. Kim Dority. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2006. 222 p. $38. ISBN 159158-180-X. G. Kim Dority, an adjunct faculty member of the University of Denver graduate program in Library and Information Science at the Morgridge School of Education, teaches courses in Information Entrepreneurship and Career Alternatives for Library Science Students and Professionals. This work, chock-full of inspirational content and presented succinctly in a go-getting, no-nonsense style, was crafted from her preparation and experiences with these courses, particularly the latter, Career Alternatives, course. The ample references are indeed worth noting and include standards from the LIS field (e.g., SLA’s 2003 Competencies For Information Professionals of the 21 st Century) as well as an astonishing number of titles from the outside (e.g., University of Chicago Psychologist’s Mikaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on creativity, Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence, or Oprah’s featured columnist, life coach Martha Beck’s work). Geared toward new recruits and seasoned practitioners alike, Dority’s book succeeds in providing a framework to enable all library professionals to craft a career plan that maximizes their ‘‘employability’’ (see definition, p. 4) and gives flexibility to withstand continuous changes in the workplace. As Dority elaborates ‘‘The goal is to design a career flexible enough that it can grow with you, rather than keep you from growing (p. 81).’’ Reflecting the search process from start to finish, the book is nicely divided into ten chapters (Rethinking Information Work, Self-Knowledge: Your Career Starting Point, The Traditional Path, the Nontraditional Path, The Independent Path, Creating Your Professional Portfolio, Growing Your Career, Thriving on Change, Creating Your Career Map, and Taking Charge of Your Career) that outline the content of the book. With seemingly boundless enthusiasm for her topic, Dority begins by stressing self-knowledge and, to that end, advocates a battery of possibilities for self-exploration including personality testing (through the Myers-Briggs), interviewing established professionals in the field, and keeping a career journal. Dority’s definition of information work is categorized into three areas or paths: the traditional path (in public, school, academic or special libraries), the nontraditional path (as an embedded knowledge worker in a corporation or nonprofit), and the independent path (as a self-employed entrepreneur) exploring the merits and drawbacks of each. While imploring readers to always consider what value they bring to any enterprise, in succeeding chapters Dority models strong ‘‘action’’ verbs throughout the book in creating a portfolio (instead of a conventional resume), growing a career, thriving on change, creating a career map, and simply taking charge. According to Dority, this entails developing confidence in one’s skills. She writes, ‘‘Traditionally, the LIS dacculturation September 2007 613
processT has rarely included assertiveness training, self-esteem strengthening, confidence building, or risk-taking among its professional development priorities (p. 124).’’ Readers should note that Dority’s emphasis on employability and her resilient optimism flies in the face of a conventional wisdom that has dictated huge barriers for professional who wish to change jobs between the traditional paths (let alone the nontraditional or independent). Perhaps the times are changing. Dority’s book is not rehabilitation for the sour, the cynical, or the hopeless and readers will find no soothing or stroking for excuses or bad breaks here. Professionals with looming employment issues are better served with Montgomery and Cook’s Conflict Management for Libraries (ALA, 2005); younger professionals also will want to consult Gordon’s The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide (Information Today, 2006) in addition to this work. Rethinking Information Work is highly recommended for all relevant collections and all professionals seeking employment in today’s workplaces.—Christy Zlatos, Manager, Holland and Terrell Reference Services, Terrell Library Room 120L, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA 99164-5610 [email protected]. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.005
Teaching Information Literacy Skills to Social Sciences Students and Practitioners: A Casebook of Applications, edited by Douglas Cook and Natasha Cooper. Chicago: American Library Association, 2006. 277 p. $39. ISBN 08389-8389-8. A plethora of example assignments, lesson plans, and course outlines exists within the research of librarianship. That said, a compilation of thorough cases is always an important contribution to the body of literature. A revisited and revised version of the 1995 edition, Teaching Information Literacy Skills goes beyond instruction for education students to include a variety of social science disciplines. This collection even makes a move beyond text-based information literacy instruction, making this an innovative and well-designed casebook from a variety of qualified contributors. This edition’s uniform style and structure help readers to compare and contrast individual lessons included throughout the book. Even though it appears that a user would most likely consult individual chapters that pertained to their own duties in librarianship, it would do instruction librarians good to read through all of the lessons to see the variety and experience in each. It should be noted that these chapters are truly more than individual lesson plans of the individual instruction sessions. The authors include honest reflections on what worked and what did not, while also offering ways to advance or improve the instruction in the future. It was especially promising to see so many of the information literacy instructional designs include more than one fifty-minute session with students. All of these cases demonstrated strong collaborations between teaching faculty and librarians, as well as intensive planning. As part of the book’s standardized organization, each lesson is correlated to specific objectives within the ACRL Information Literacy Standards to provide a framework for instruction. Each chapter includes an ‘‘Analysis of the Learning Situation’’
614 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
where one can find descriptions of teaching facilities and notes about individual campuses. Many of the cases include specific kinds of technology used during instruction and detailed active learning exercises for adaptation in other settings. While most of the courses targeted in this monograph include those you would expect in a work dedicated to the social sciences (like communications, education, and psychology), audiences are not limited to undergraduates. Some lessons detail collaborative work geared to more diverse learning populations, such as graduate students, international students, distance education students, and teacher candidates. It should be noted as well that this book includes lessons that address information literacy beyond a text-based learning environment, including a welldefined lesson on visual literacy and one that focuses on data literacy. As a whole, Teaching Information Literacy Skills provides a variety of opportunities for those in the social sciences and beyond. It will also be useful for those in other disciplines as both a way to generate new ideas in your teaching, collaborations with faculty, and formats to facilitate instruction design. Within the information literacy instruction literature, this is a welcome addition and likely to encourage imitators of equal competence, clarity, and comprehensiveness.—Michelle S. Millet, Information Literacy Coordinator, Coates Library, Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX, 78212-7200 [email protected]. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.006
The Twelfth Off-Campus Library Services Conference Proceedings, edited by Julie Garrison. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Information Press, 2007. 593 p. $90.00. ISBN 978-07890-3477-9. Co-sponsored by Central Michigan University (CMU) OffCampus Library Services and CMU Off-Campus Programs, the biennial Off-Campus Library Services Conferences offer peerreviewed presentations related to the provision of library services for remote users. The Twelfth Off-Campus Library Services Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers that were presented at the 12th biennial conference in Savannah, Georgia in April 2006. The 12th OCLS Conference presentations consists of 28 Contributed Papers, three Contributed Workshops, and eight Contributed Electronic Posters. Articles within each section are arranged alphabetically by author. In addition, there is a Contributor Index and a general Index. The documents in the Contributed Papers section cover topics of interest to academic librarians who provide services to remote users in a variety of learning environments, including online instruction, hybrid courses, off-site classrooms, and branch campuses. Most of the examples are from library services in the United States, but there is some representation from Canada and the West Indies. Many of the articles deal with utilizing technology to serve off-campus users. These range from Web site evaluation, blogging, orientation CD’s, course management software, the need for e-books to downloadable resources for handheld devices. Consistent with past volumes of OCLS Conference Proceedings, many of the articles treat important topics of discussion in