— Spring 1996 —

A Major Event for International School Librarians!

The Munich International School (Starnberg, Germany) will play host to a special gathering of international school library professionals and paraprofessionals. The Conference, "Libraries in International Schools: Meeting the Challenges," organized by the ECIS Committee on Library/Media Centers, will offer special workshops and presentations designed to meet the special professional development needs of librarians working in the multicultural, multilingual, pluralistic environment typical of international schools.

Although changes are still being made to the actual Conference Programme, it looks to be a hectic, rewarding three days. Friday will start off with two keynote speakers. Gretel Schurer (J.F. Kennedy School, Berlin) will speak on prize-winning German literature for children and young adults, and Prof. Gwilym Huws of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, will speak on the Challenges to the Management of School Libraries in the 21st Century. Both speakers are, of course, recognized authorities in their field. Friday afternoon will see a special, guided, introduction to the International Youth Library (Internationale Jugend Bibliothek), giving conference participants a special chance to learn more about the work of this unique institution. Saturday's programme will consist of a selection of smaller workshops, running concurrently throughout the day. Special care is being taken to see that the needs of our whole community are met, from the novice to the experienced professional, from those libraries struggling with basic issues of organization to those on the cutting edge of the latest technology. A special Featured Speaker of the day will be the well-known library consultant Dr. Carolyn Markuson (Bibliotech Corp), who will be offering several workshops (See Dr. Markuson's excellent essay, "From Clay to Copper" -- the last article in this issue). Representatives from several firms well-known in the International School community will also be present, to offer workshops, product information, and customer service. We expect participation from SIRS, Winnebago, EBSCO, Follett, and others. One of the highlights of the weekend will surely be the SIRS Gala Dinner on Saturday night. Sunday morning will consist of special free-form sharing sessions that allow the conference participants to use one another as sources of information and problem-solving resources. A special mailing, with more detailed information and registration details, is planned for early February. If you would like to learn more about "Libraries in International Schools: Meeting the Challenges" please contact Richard Barter at The Link (address below) or Helen Thomas, Munich International School Senior School Librarian.

Another Unique Professional Development Opportunity:

The SIRS/ECIS Information Exchange Award

As in years past, we are fortunate to be able to announce the SIRS/ECIS Information Exchange Award. Interested library professionals or paraprofessionals from ECIS schools are invited to write a one-page letter of application. The winning applicant will be able to spend two weeks in south Florida visiting local schools and area professionals. In your letter of application, explain what you would hope to gain from the Award, and what you would hope to be able to give the Florida host-librarians. The award winner will be chosen by the ECIS Committee on Library/Media Centers, and all travel and accommodation expenses will be paid by SIRS, who will arrange the visit to fit the winner's professional needs and schedule.

Please send in your letter of application (to Richard Barter at the American School of Las Palmas) no later than March 1st, 1996.

Updates

People & Places

If you have any news or dates that you would like to share with
colleagues at other schools in this regular column, pass them along to:

John Royce
International School Hamburg
Holmbrook 20
22605 Hamburg (Germany)

People, people who . . . can be squeezed down into 2 or 3 inches with a little help from
my editor. . . .

Bloodless revolution -- all change! The ECIS Committee on Library/Media Centers has a new look. Three members have come to the ends of their terms: Carol Gordon, Marie-Claire Billington, and myself. We each found it a pleasure to serve; we got a lot out of our time on the Committee, and hope the "membership" benefited. Two new members were elected in Montreux: Kimete (Katie) Basha Novosejt (International School of Brussels) and Krysha Papillon (American School of Paris). Both are "old Conference hands," and they are both excited by the opportunity to do something more for fellow-librarians in ECIS. Vivienne Locke, Lisa Grist, and Henry Parker stay on and provide continuity. Vivienne was elected Vice-chairman, a position that does not exist! The answer to the conundrum? Well, Rick Barter wanted to step down from the Chair, but was persuaded that it might be difficult for a very new Committee to take over the onerous task of arranging Munich in May and Nice in November. So Rick will carry on until May, and Vivienne takes over then. A nice compromise, one which should make for two well-planned, smooth Conferences.

A few other personal tidbits from Montreux (it is always good to see old friends again): nice to see Judy Anderson, who came over from Japan and almost missed the librarians' dinner! Good to meet Deborah Tate-Smith again, recently promoted from Library Assistant to Librarian at the International School Brussels. Good luck with those studies, Deborah. And Nicole Bernou from Frankfurt International School was there too: nice to see you again. Nicole also attended the Winnebago PreConference workshops -- and it is good to see a school appreciate that people who operate the day-to-day systems need training -- even if they aren't full-time professionals. Which neatly brings us back to Munich '96: It's as much for paras and part-timers as it is for old hands. So let's see a good turn-out, yeah!

Stay in Touch!

Richard Barter
American School of Las Palmas
Apartado 15 - Tafira Alta
35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (SPAIN)
fax. (34) (28) 43 00 17

Ask and Ye Shall Receive...

Do you need information? Want to get in touch with colleagues in other schools? Whether it's a problem or a request, practical or professional, write to The Link, and we will try to put you in touch with someone who can help. Just ask and ye shall receive!

Carol Gordon (Frankfurt I.S.) writes: The American Library Association is sponsoring the publishing of librarians' work on the Internet. Postings will begin in early April and whatever is received will be posted relevant to the following topics:

Libraries in the Electronic Age The State of Children's Literature in Your Country Bringing Students up to Snuff: The New Skills for a New Age Building Teacher Competencies

Please send your articles and ideas to the following e-mail address:

Markuson@world.std.com

ECIS Conference in Nice, November 21-24, 1996

As you will have read above, the first ECIS Committee on Library/Media Centers-sponsored Conference in Munich in May, promises to be something special. The Committee has decided to go for the theme defining and implementing information literacy as we help the ECIS Secretariat pull together a balanced programme for the Nice Conference. We are pleased to announce that Carol Kuhithau (Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA), the well known speaker on literacy in the Information Age school, has accepted our invitation to speak. We are hoping to get an author as the other main speaker. We would very much like to have more suggestions for consideration from you out there -- as soon as possible (late January at the very latest). Perhaps you have had experience setting up a programme for literacy or its development in your school and would like to share the experience with others, or perhaps you have heard another colleague speak recently on this topic? As Chair of the Planning Committee for Nice, I would really appreciate your input in good time, as I have to discuss ideas with the Committee members before submitting the suggestions to ECIS.

All suggestions and ideas may be sent to me:

Vivienne Locke
International School of The Hague
Theo Mann -- Bouwmeesterlaan 75
2597GV The Hague (Netherlands)
FAX: (31) (70) 328 1450

School Libraries

A Librarian in Cyberspace

Lisa Griest (International school of Amsterdam) in the
third of a series

For many, the Internet is not just accessing databases but having the chance to correspond with people around the world who share similar professions, ideas, phobias -- you name it. Listservs are online discussion groups -- you post a message and everyone else gets to read it.

One of the most popular listservs for librarians is lm_net. This listserv is especially geared to library media specialists, so it's a great professional development tool, as well as a nice way to avoid feeling so isolated. Helen Thomas (Munich I.S.) and Catherine RS Inchmore (Griffith Library) are good people to talk to about this. A word of warning: librarians like to talk, talk, talk. It's rare to get only a handful of messages on lm_net. Luckily, there's a digest option so you can get one very long message instead of 30 short ones!

To subscribe, send to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message type: subscribe lm_net Your Name

Other librarian listservs I have come across are:

CDROM-L (Discussion about CD-ROMs)
To subscribe, send to listserv@uccvma.ucop.edu
Message: subscribe CDROM-L Your Name

MEDIA-L (Discussion involving media in education)
To subscribe, send to listserv@cunyvm.edu
Message: subscribe MEDIA-L Your Name

Winnebago has a listserv for Winnebago users:
To subscribe, send to majordomo@MR.NET
Message: subscribe Winnebago-LIBNET Your Name

Mandarin has a listserv for Mandarin users:
To subscribe, send to listserv@listserv.syr.edu
Message: subscribe Mandarin Your Name

SIRS has a listserv for SIRS products users:
To subscribe, send to listproc@sirs.com
Message: subscribe sirsnet Your Name

Have you seen these?

Under the auspices of Information Officer Jennifer Henley, ECIS has begun publication of the Current Information Service. A range of educational journals is scanned for articles of interest in international schools, which are then indexed and abstracted in the CIS bulletin. One may request, for a fee, copies of the articles listed. The bulletin is mailed to Heads of all ECIS schools.

The International Association of School Librarianship has begun an excellent new journal called School Libraries Worldwide. Included with IASL membership, it is also available by subscription. Contact The Link for more information about this venture.

The Feature Article

From Clay to Copper

Some Rejoicings and Some Caveats
from Dr. Carolyn Markuson (Bibliotech Corporation)

The history of the "book" has been long and varied . . . from ancient times when more time was spent carving one copy of a tablet "book" and transporting it to a literate reader than to reading it. In simpler times, memory and oral traditions were the primary means of sharing information with the common man. Not until the printing press did the "book" become an economical mechanism to spread the written word to vast numbers of people. In today's world, creating the message still takes human time, ingenuity, and skill (it really does!) but the recording and sharing can be done at the speed of light to millions at one time through copper and waves. Unfortunately, the human ability to read the thoughts and ideas contained has remained fairly static over the millennium . . . but then ingestion has never been equated with digestion or understanding!

Throughout the history of information there has traditionally always been an "authority" behind the product. This authority could be the noted scholar who composed the work, the reputable firm that published it, or the knowledgeable editors who verified the information. Some of this can happen electronically as well, but it can be more the exception than the rule. In our anyone-is- an-author milieu this authority is often lost, leaving the reader or consumer not knowing whether they have a gold nugget or a chestnut. Adults can often make this distinction because of their accumulated experiential knowledge. Children cannot make these distinctions and more often than not just assume that "if it is on the computer, television, or in print" it must be true. They also miss many of the details, such as copyright dates!

Also, through the ages, some information and literatures have established their credibility and style, becoming part of a world literary heritage and a form of permanent information. We refer to these as the classics. They are timeless and enduring. They may be works of fiction or fact. Many other resources have proven to be transient at best. Many "free" or "vanity" publications fell into this latter category: free from authenticity, permanence, intrinsic validity, or even good examples of written expression. The few that were on unique topics, with lasting quality, are those exceptions that prove the rule! In the electronic world many were restatements, opinions, or rearrangements of what can readily be found at one's fingertips -- often at one's elbow, in print.

Major searching on the Internet shows that much of what is found is sparse and difficult to attribute authenticity. We must throw away our normal intellectual modes of organizing information with a hierarchy or outline. For we are entering a hypertext world that makes connections and linkages in much more "round-about" thinking -- yet more natural to the way humans normally use their minds and follow their interests. There being issues of reliability and accountability to the user, information gleaned from many sources on the Internet is suspect at the very least. Even the search mechanisms many of us employ, called search engines, operate mostly on the mere number of times a keyword is counted on the home or subsequent pages. A search often turns up hundreds of repetitive citations pointing to the same place with enormous numbers of solicitations to "do business with me" among the mix.

Sites of repute are available -- but not always free. Future development promises encryption or stenanography that will provide authentication -- for a fee. There will be public and private "keys" to use to de-encrypt. Electronic publishing is seeking ways of maintaining its authority and control in numerous avant-garde ways. For example, a download of relevant information will register the hard-drive serial number and restrict the information to use only on that machine. Legislation now under serious consideration for U.S. users of the Net will virtually eliminate any "fair use" policies and strictly enforce copyright in ways science fiction can only envision. Another way of calculating "free" is to put a per hour of search time charge at work. How many times I have heard tell of 4 hour (immigration) or even 17 hour (a Supreme Court decision) searches on the Net only to result in little on-target information. Professionals now average US$30 per hour without benefits. A four hour search then costs $120 -- no small price to pay!

Another example of the intrinsic value of electronic information lies in the analysis of major periodical indexes online. These offer hundreds of periodicals, many of which are in full-text mode. The fact is that only a fraction (20%-30%) of periodicals would ever have been considered for purchase in hard copy. They are not research or even reference quality. The remainder are periodicals that have an extremely limited circulation or interest to students. The clear cut winners in this "electronic land" are A) convenience (any information at hand is better than none); B) citation padding (makes the bibliography look longer); and C) the vendor who sold the electronic rights for a hefty fee. In case you hadn't noticed, there is very little altruism in the development of electronic resources. What sells is what is produced; what is produced is aimed to sell. Admittedly, a few of these low circulation periodicals contain gems, but at the high cost, more "meat" should be made available. At a high school recently a senior proposed to use an article from a middle school magazine as the core resource for a senior paper. The English teacher, not recognizing the source but knowing that it came from an electronic periodical index, okayed it. Strange authority these electronics impart!

And what about the universality and availability of the "copper" resource! If the purpose of schooling, particularly at the elementary level, is to teach reading, then a plethora of books with exciting stories, well-written (to provide a model worth emulating) need to be within fingertip reach, not at the end of a computer that is only available at a scheduled time of day. This will probably not always be the case -- but until everyone has a computer at the ready whenever the "mood strikes" there will be a need for resources which can be tucked under the arm or surreptitiously under the bed sheet. We owe our students access to quality materials which provide models of writing and lucid organization for them irrespective of format. Students must be able to select appropriate resources and not settle for the first things that come across the electronic wires.

Lest you draw from this that I am an electronic information Luddite or that I bemoan the copper end of the clay product, that is not my point (nor, in fact, my position). I am concerned that students have the well-written, high quality resources available that allow them to compare and contrast ideas, draw logical conclusions, debate issues, and create maps or webs around topics. These must be available in a timely fashion and in a manner that all students can use without cost. It also means that they must be easily transportable for home use. Reading and absorbing the information must be done at other times and places, which takes us back to the differences between ingestion and digestion. This underscores the need for a quality school library, staffed with talented professionals who know what is available in-house, locally, and electronically that would best meet the immediate and long-range needs of the students.

At the elementary and middle school level, flooding the child's world with books that they can read wherever they are, under the covers, waiting for the bus, quietly under a tree, comfy in a parent's arms is what is needed to develop the love of reading and learning we educators seek to imbue in our students. These are not places computers can compete with yet. We may get to this electronically in the next century if we can solve the equity and financial issues -- but we aren't there yet -- we're not even close! So get those school libraries revitalized, blend the clay with the copper appropriately, incorporate the teaching of the new skills required in a hypertext electronic environment so that the magnificent step forward that has been taken in the evolution, acquisition, and accessibility of knowledge, both literary and informational, can continue.