From the moment I announced to the world that I was going to make a career change and become a media specialist, I became the object of a rich plethora of librarian jokes that I had no idea existed! Even my “sweet” children poked fun at me with lopsided grins. It was evident that they all were oblivious as to what role the media specialist should play today in this information society. And here I wrote “should” because I could clearly see that –at least in my surroundings- the media specialist most often does not always partake of his/her (why do we all seem to be female?) responsibility. The most refreshing splash of fresh energy came to me when I saw the quote by the anonymous university professor that you could have any media program that you want to have at the beginning of module three. It was within me to make a difference and to show all those good-humored jesters the pivotal importance that the library should have in our school, in our community and beyond! Then I began to read...good gracious! There were so many ideas about leading change that ranged from interior decorating (Simply Beautiful) to practicing ESP about principals’ information needs and meeting them before required (Increasing Your Influence by Addressing Self-Interest) to reaching out to parents and converting them into our patrons (Outreach to Parents and Community) to dozens of other ideas that sounded equally useful and equally time consuming, that I felt overwhelmed. Weighed down. Yes, it is well documented that if I assumed a role of leadership and change, turned around our stagnant library and evolved it to what it should be, the media center would make a real positive difference for our students. Others have done it before as some of the articles I read commented, but where will I find the time to orchestrate this change? With so many plentiful ideas, one as precious as the other, how could I prioritize them? The answer of course was included in the proposition: leadership. I would have to lead and to be able to “motivate people to achieve a common goal” that included first of all, having a vision which would entail having a mission, goals and a structured plan. This draft of the plan that emerged out of module three, is probably the most precious by-product of this course up to now. Suddenly all of the ideas needed to get prioritized, a few were postponed in time, others eliminated, but the end result was a plan that took the mishmash that my brain had made of the readings and blessedly structured everything into a coherent timeline. Now it looks as if I could accomplish something and I have a tangible reason to schedule a meeting with the directors and principals, an opportunity to sell the media center as a uniquely valuable entity of school learning. Hopefully, this plan will not be cut down too much by the directors and principals because I want a lot of amateur comedians to have to start looking for fresh material.
Module 4 was my pet module, obviously. I think that to have entered this field with my background is a huge advantage because I am not subject to the services the IT department could provide having been –in the most part- the IT department in the past. I would be immensely interested in knowing what percentage of coursework leading to a media specialist degree now has to do with technology in prestigious college and universities, because it seems to be such a core factor.
I think I was surprised that the most commented problem by my fellow students during this module had to do with blocking issues. (I already blogged about the evil aura that the IT people seem to have in the eyes of media specialists and stated my regret at the things that I personally could have done in the past to generate frustration.) I could conjure up reasons for imposing strict control in the elementary but I cannot really fathom why secondary students would not have access to emails, blogs, wikis, and other tools that have the potential to be used so productively in an academic setting. You should not restrict but educate and let the students have the consequences if they use these resources irresponsibly. I think monitoring is better than blocking (but then again, maybe schools have privacy laws that make monitoring not legal in the States).
“Online presence” was most certainly the phrase that stuck me to the core and that personally impelled me to get busy designing the media center’s brand new web page: “Burton B. Fox Library…Evolving into a 21st Century Information Media Center” with blazing letters and flash animation. Probably this was my most fun work up until now and I will be looking forward to actually see it in action. I hope the principal contributors of this site will be the students –through the use of the electronic forums and wikis- and that it will open up the doors of the library to our KCP community 24/7. This was the main by-product of this module and I am grateful for that.
At the end of the day I revisit the reasons that I had initially stated when asked why I chose a career as a media specialist. I remember having said I loved information science and I still agree to that in part. But now, after four modules, I feel that that will only be a tiny fraction of why I will I will stay in love with this career.
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