Today we had the official, grand opening of the new Collaborative Zone and 'The Hive', our makerspace at Tanglin Trust School, Singapore. The event began with a speech by our Chief Executive Officer, Peter Derby-Crook, before the ribbon was cut by our Guest-of-Honour, Kristine Cho - a Sixth-Form student who has been a really keen library-user during her time at Tanglin. The Collaborative Zone Team had organised lots of hands on activities including Strawbees construction kits, Little Bits electronics, Iphone holograms, Google cardboard virtual reality, 3 D printing and much more. So once the area was officially open there was fun for all!
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The last time I posted about our library extension was in September, when building work was still in full swing and my blog stated that "Our extension is progressing...". The 'Collaborative Zone' has now been open for a few months and is hugely popular with our students; it's always buzzing with activity!
Jacqui Makselon, our Director of Libraries, has designed the library so that we are able to offer our students a choice of three spaces:
Interactive Zone - where students, staff and parents can find the fiction collection and they can read books and magazines together. There are multi-media pods for watching DVDs in small groups and a big screen TV showing the news or information about current or topical events. There is also a presentation area for classes, guest speakers, film shows etc.
Study Zone - a very quiet (usually silent) area for students to study individually, with access to over 50 PCs. The non-fiction collection is housed in the Study Zone and librarians are on hand to help with any queries or reference enquiries.
The Hive will give students the freedom to be creative, have fun and learn. There will be opportunities for students to participate in activities that link to the curriculum as well as opportunities to let their imagination run wild and make whatever comes to mind! It's all about creativity and having fun, learning through experimentation.
Libraries are often at the forefront of technological developments and they provide people with access to technology that they may not otherwise be able to use. Where else but a library can people go to have free use of a computer, the internet, eBooks, eJournals, eMagazines...? By creating makerspaces, libraries are again providing patrons with this service. Many libraries around the world are beginning to offer makerspaces where people can try 3D printing and use other equipment that they would not be able to use anywhere else. We're very proud of Tanglin's new makerspace and there's a buzz of excitement as The Hive moves towards it's official launch later this term. The Collaborative Team are working hard to get ready for the launch and to provide a great new service to our community. Find out lots more in the Collaborative Team blogs, including this introductory video created by Azizah: As librarians, we are part of a profession that is changing rapidly and it is essential for us to keep up with all the latest developments. I therefore like to take up as many opportunities for continuing professional development as possible. MASTER OF INFORMATION STUDIES I am, of course, still studying towards my Master of Information Studies and this is really helping to bring my professional knowledge up-to-date. I'm currently studying 'Research in Practice' which is opening my eyes to the theory and philosophy, as well as the practice, of academic research. Understanding the theories and practice of the research studies that are reported in academic papers enables scholarly articles to be thoroughly evaluated by the reader. This will help me, in my role as Reference Librarian, when I'm evaluating whether a particular scholarly article will be appropriate to a student's or member of staff's needs. Other recent professional development opportunities have included: LIBRARIES FOR TOMORROW 2014 I attended the Libraries for Tomorrow conference in October with my colleagues, Azlinda, Xiao Mang, Vani, Zana, Yati and Jaaziel. Both Azlinda and Xiao Mang, my colleagues from the Senior Library, have already written very interesting blogs about the conference: Azlinda - Libraries for Tomorrow 2014 Conference by LAS Xiao Mang - Library for Tomorrow 2014 All the presentations can be accessed on the Libraries for Tomorrow 2014 website. ![]() There were many excellent presentations, too many to discuss here, but highlights for me, included:
This presentation talked about the ways the National Library Board (NLB) is moving more towards self-service in their libraries. The NLB has already introduced eKiosks in their libraries for many customer transactions (such as paying fines etc.). There are also a number of mobile services, such as the SMS reminder service, the 'Library in your pocket' app and 'MobileRead' for eBooks. Another app, My Library was also mentioned, which enables patrons to issue books to themselves directly from the shelves. Clever technology has been developed to enable the security gantries to recognise that a book has been issued to stop the alarm from sounding. ![]() The NLB are also rolling out reservation lockers (see photo on the left) which allow patrons to self-collect books they have reserved. This service has been introduced in the new Library @ Orchard, which recently reopened after being closed for seven years (Atiqah recently went to the recently re-vamped library and blogged about her visit). So, as always, I found it interesting to hear about the latest NLB projects. I love the way the NLB are always looking for the next way to move forward. This is key for libraries to remain relevant to our users and NLB are so good at it!
The National Institute of Education (NIE) Library is currently embarking on a five-year plan to transform into a teacher education library that is relevant in the 21st century. This transformation is involving a number of areas covering human resources, library buildings and facilities, library resources and services etc. One project that was recently completed is their 'Library as Space Project' which ran from 2011 -2013. An overview is given here: (Source: Sharing NIE Library as Space Project) ![]() Many levels of the library are being transformed: Level 2 - Service Space - includes: One-stop Service Point Touch Screen WebOPAC Reserves section Self-check machines 24 hour bookdrop Research Commons Interactive Digital Signage Private Media Viewing Room ![]() Level 3 - Service space - includes: Private discussion pods Smart room Elegant gallery Makerspace with 3D printer Learning Hub lounge for students Lounge for staff Spacious cafe integrated with the Learning Hub lounge It was particularly interesting to hear about this space, as it is similar to the one that is currently being developed in our library. Level 4 - Knowledge space, includes private study area and an open area for group study. The library has received a lot of positive feedback about the changes they have made. These are just two examples of the interesting presentations from the Libraries for Tomorrow 2014 Conference, you can view more presentations here. Another event that I attended recently was: FOBISIA INFORMATION LITERACY JOB-ALIKE WORKSHOP On Friday 7th and Saturday 8th November Jacqui and I attended a Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA) workshop on Information Literacy, which we hosted here at Tanglin Trust School. Other participants from our school included Celeste (Junior School Teacher Librarian) and Ben (Infant School Teacher Librarian). Our Head of Integrated Technologies for the Infant School, Kim Vernon, also gave a very interesting presentation. This wordle was created by one of the attendees to give an overview of many of the terms and topics that were covered over the course of the workshop: Each participant was required to plan a session relating to information literacy. Jacqui Makselon and I presented on "information Literacy at TTS Senior School : a work in progress" ![]() Our presentation covered the progress that has been made with regard to information literacy in the Senior School: Jacqui, Celeste, Ben and I have created an information literacy framework, which is a continuum of the information literacy skills that we expect our students to learn, from Infants right through to Sixth Form students and staff. This framework is now being taken and put into practice, by using a three-pronged approach: 1. Online support - a number of libguides have been created to support various aspects of information literacy including Research Skills, Referencing and Academic Honesty. 2. Use academic honesty as a vehicle - we have been involved in the creation of a comprehensive academic honesty policy for the school. There have also been presentations on academic honesty for students and professional development workshops for staff, including support staff. 3. Embed i-skills into the curriculum - specific information literacy skills are being explicitly taught by particular faculties. The skills are also being incorporated into inquiry based learning and research projects, and integrated into assessment requirements and rubrics. As mentioned, in the title of our presentation, this is "a work in progress" and we also covered the various plans we have to continue the progress of integrating information literacy into everyone's lives at Tanglin Trust School. ![]() As everyone presented, there was a very interesting variety of topics covered. These included: Information literacy in the UK - Laura Taylor, Junior/Senior Librarian at Dulwich College, Singapore, gave a very interesting overview of information literacy as it currently stands in the UK. Digital literacy in the curriculum - Kim Vernon, Head of Integrated technology at Tanglin Trust School, talk about how Tanglin has integrated digital literacy into the curriculum and the resources that were used to support this. Information literacy in the curriculum - Richard Marlow and Peter Dulborough from British International School of Ho Chi Minh, focused on the information literacy curriculum that they have developed across the primary years and the resources that were used to support this, including their own website. Information literacy in the primary curriculum at Tanglin Trust School - Ben Farr and Celeste Fisher talked about how information literacy has been implemented at the infant and primary level. It was a very interesting and worthwhile workshop, lots of information was shared about what is going on at different schools in relation to information literacy, with everyone sharing thoughts and ideas. I really enjoyed this animated poem, entitled Library, by Scroobius Pip which was commissioned for BBC 6 Music's celebration of libraries. The radio station has had a special 'Celebrate Libraries' fortnight (from 8th to 21st November 2014) featuring a range of special events focusing on the "wonder and awe" of libraries. I hope that events like this will help to highlight to eveyone all the unique, quirky and awesome things that libraries have to offer. Many UK libraries have closed in the last few years and they continue to be under threat, so the more positive publicity the better, before any more are lost ![]() In a previous post, I mentioned that I had written a piece of work for my University course that included a discussion on makerspaces. I really enjoyed researching this topic (and managed to achieve my first Higher Distinction! :) ) so I thought I'd share a brief introduction to makerspaces here. A makerspace is an area in which individuals can use technology tools to create digital or physical items. Making in libraries is not a new idea; in 1873 The Gowanda Ladies Social Society met in New York to "quilt, knit, sew, socialise and talk about books" ("A history of making", 2013). Now, as libraries seek to adapt to a rapidly changing world where their physical space is needed less for the storage of books, there is a rise in the number of libraries offering facilities for people to create audio, visual or physical items.
One of the key advantages of providing a makerspace in a school library is the opportunities for creative learning. Some now believe that creativity can be considered as important as literacy in education (Robinson, 2006).
By creatively applying their scientific and mathematical knowledge in a makerspace students are able to solve problems and build things (Kemp, 2013). Through the development of their creativity, students are building skills for success in the new global economy (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2011). This is obviously a very brief introduction to makerspaces, if you are interested to know more I'm happy to share my report with you, just let me know :) REEFERENCES A history of making. (2013, January-February). American Libraries, 44(1/2), 46–47. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA315371795&v=2.1&u=csu_au&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&asid=0726982cf7625e9d0b730d2ae87360bf Kemp, A. (2013). The makerspace workbench: tools, technologies, and techniques for making. Retrieved from Overdrive Partnership for 21st century skills. (2011). Framework for 21st century learning. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/1.__p21_framework_2-pager.pdf Robinson, K. (2006). Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity. You Tube. Retrieved January 11, 2014, from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html ![]() Earlier this week, all of the Reference Team, headed to the National Library after work. We went to listen to a very interesting talk by Dame Lynne Brindley about the future of research libraries. Dame Lynne Brindley is currently Master of Pembroke College, Oxford and previously she was Chief Executive of the British Library from 2000 to 2012. Dame Brindley began by talking about the current 12-15 year olds who will be university students in a few years time. Their needs are very different from any students before them, they spend much of their lives in an online world and libraries will need to adapt to their needs. She then covered a number of topics relating to the changing world of libraries. These included: Differentiation She talked about the need for libraries to offer differentiated services depending on the needs of students. In an academic, university setting this may involve offering different services to students from different faculties. So a Humanities student may need something quite different from a Biomedical student, for example. Dame Brindley, does see bookless libraries for libraries catering for subjects like Science and Engineering, while others, like History, will still need physical books. It is essential that library spaces are reinvented to accommodate changing needs. Digital acquisition and archiving As we know, libraries are currently facing many challenges. One challenge is the management of digital acquisition and archiving. Digital content is very different to the physical content that libraries have traditionally preserved. Digital content is much less durable and it is essential that ways are found to enable the long-term preservation of digital resources. The British Library is now working towards this by storing and maintaining digital content as well as physical. Opening up access Dame Brindley talked about the way that access to collections is being opened up. Digitisation is now a core function of all institutions that have heritage collections. 40 million pages of newspapers have been digitised by the British Library and, because they are outside of copyright, they can be made available to the public. Discovery and navigation The next topic was of particular interest to me, as I’m currently studying metadata as part of my Masters course. Dame Brindley mentioned the importance of metadata in creating the semantic web. People want easy access to information, with rankings, ratings and recommendations. They want to be steered towards quality resources and obviously this fits perfectly with the role of librarians. The overall message of the talk was that research libraries must adapt for their changing role in the 21st Century. Here you can see Dame Lynne Brindley talking about the future of research libraries at a lecure series on Innovations in Digital Scholarship supported by the Oxford eResearch Centre's Digital Social Research Programme: I recently completed the ‘Digital Environment’ module of my course. I was actually quite sorry it was over as I really enjoyed it! For my final piece of coursework I looked at two technological trends that are likely to affect libraries over the next five years. There are quite a few areas that would be relevant but I decided to look at Maker Spaces and Open Educational Resources (OER). In this post I’ll share some of the information that I found out about OER (I’ll look at maker spaces in another blog post).
Some Universities, like MIT, offer Open University courses that anyone can attend for free! MIT have already reached 100 million people worldwide with their courses and they hope to reach a billion by 2021 (MIT). The move towards open access obviously has implications for publishers. Many University academics are beginning to publish their work in open access journals. Their work has already been publically funded, so they believe the public should have open access to that research. The increase in availability of open access articles eliminates the need to pay licence fees. This could potentially, in the UK for example, save universities, colleges, libraries and museums millions of pounds every year (Green, 2013). Publishers' revenue is likely to be impacted as open access publishing becomes more popular.
The student can spend as much time as necessary working through this material. Lesson time is spent applying that knowledge in engaging activities, with the teacher’s support. These teacher videos can also be supported by the provision of other relevant videos, tutorials etc. for students to use before their lesson.
![]() When I attended the 'Riding the global wave: trends affecting libraries and librarians' talk by Ingrid Parent in May, she mentioned that the Trend Report would be launched at the IFLA Confererence. This was something I really looked forward to hearing about. The Trend Report looks across society at the trends that are affecting libraries and how they will affect them in the future. The five trends identified as playing a key role in the future of libraries and the information world are:
![]() Ingrid Parent (the outgoing President of the IFLA) delivered an interesting speech about the Trend Report covering some of the advances and issues that are expected over the coming years and what impact they will have on libraries. Some points that I found really interesting were: Google Glass - The new technological glasses will mean that everyone wearing them will be able to conduct surveillance on everyone else, they can record what they see as they go about their daily lives. What will this mean for libraries that are seen by many as a safe place or sanctuary? How will libraries address this issue? In my mind this is a very serious issue for society as a whole. I know we are all recorded on CCTV many times each day but the idea that strangers who we walk past in the street can record us and share those recordings on social media is quite a disturbing prospect. Information mining - Data is collected on all of us to produce better services and big businesses know all about our lifestyle and habits from the data they collect. Some libraries are already following this trend but how could libraries make more use of data to improve and give personalised to their customers? When is the amount of data collected deemed to be too much? Search engines - Ingrid asked many questions about the issue of search engines - Can the results returned by search engines be trusted? Should libraries produce a competing algorithm or help people to have the information literacy skills to use the existing technology? Who is responsible for false information on the internet? How do libraries identify important cultural items on the internet? These are just some of the thought-provoking questions on search engines raised in the speech. I know we already have the issue of personalised search results from search engines like Google but maybe alternatives, like Duck Duck Go, that don't track you or use a filter bubble go some way towards a solution. Hyper-linked societies - Ingrid also spoke about the rise in surveillance by governments so nothing on the internet is private. Even democratic societies are filtering the information and if that is standard government practice, what impact does this have on libraries when they try to collect our digital history? ![]() These are just a few of the really interesting points and questions raised by Ingrid Parent's presentation on The Trend Report. A summary of the key points of the report can be accessed here: Insights into to the IFLA Trend Report Discussion on the Trend Report can be followed on Twitter at #iflatrends ![]() n 28 March I attended an interesting talk by Ingrid Parent (President of the IFLA) in the National Library building. The title of the talk was “Ride the global wave: trends affecting libraries and librarians”. The future of libraries is something I'm really interested in, partly because I'm studying it as part of my course and partly because it is going to affect our careers now and in the future. From the notes I jotted down, some of the things covered were: Change: There are very fast rates of change happening in libraries and in society as a whole, change can be difficult but it needs to be done in a balanced way. ( Source of picture: https://www.facebook.com/wlic2013 ) Economics: We are seeing the rise of the knowledge society. Economics depend on society to innovate and develop an informed population but there are challenges involved in educating citizens. Technology: There has been tremendous change over the past ten years. Mobile technology is being used as an information exchange and access tool. It is not just the young who are adapting to new technologies but also older people and it is happening globally. Power has shifted from institutions to the individuals and the impact this has had on democracy movements has been profound. We are just at the beginning of a digital revolution. Information is no longer controlled by the few. Impact on libraries: Users want 24/7 access to information. People now start a search for information on Google, not in the library catalogue. The ACRL 2012 report of ‘Top trends in academic libraries’ states that library users want convenience (ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee, 2012). Users are requesting libraries to move towards digital resources but they still need to serve those who want physical resources. Libraries need to keep pace with how people are acting, with cloud computing, social networking etc. David Attis (2013) says of academic libraries, “Our users will meet more than 90% of their information needs from sources that are not directly connected to the library”. Ingrid Parent said, “The mission of libraries is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities” Three trends in libraries - from the PEW 2013 report (Zickuhr , Rainie, & Purcell, 2013): 1. Outreach – libraries must go out in to communities, don’t wait for people to come to you. 2. Embedded librarianship – librarian goes out of the library and into another setting. This is a service that is going to grow, eg. Academic librarians moving out into faculties etc. 3. Collaboration – the digital world has enabled much more collaboration. Libraries have always collaborated but can now easily collaborate globally. Digitising, for example, can be shared between libraries around the world. The future of libraries depends on collaboration. Libraries are becoming more of an interactive learning space, offering leading edge technology, interesting programmes are being developed and they provide a welcoming, safe, commercial free space. Access to computers is almost as important as borrowing books. Libraries must keep up with trends. The IFLA has commissioned a report to look at what society will look like in 2020 so that libraries can adapt and make sure they will still be relevant. The report will be launched at the IFLA conference in Singapore in August. The theme of the conference is ‘Future Libraries: Infinite possibilities’ (and I’m looking forward to it already!!) References: ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee. (2012, June). 2012 top ten trends in academic libraries: A review of the trends and issues affecting academic libraries in higher education. College and research libraries news, 73, 311-320. Retrieved from http://crln.acrl.org/content/73/6/311.full.pdf+html Attis, D., (2013, March 1). Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/lookingforward/1 Zickuhr , K., Rainie, L., & Purcell, K. (2013, January 22). Library services in the digital age . Retrieved from http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/01/22/library-services/ |
Suzanne Parfitt
I recently worked as Assistant Librarian at a British International School in Singapore. I've now relocated back to the UK and I am hoping to find a job that I enjoy as much as the one I've just left! Searching the ShelvesThis is my blog for interesting things to do with my work, my Continuing Professional Development (CPD), my studies or just anything that catches my eye relating to libraries, technology or books. Archives
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