Holistic Information

So has anyone called it this before?

"Holistic Information" (my term? at least in this sense? my definition): The healthy taking in and dissemination of knowledge or intelligence; A comprehensive understanding of how the use and misuse of communicated intelligence can affect one's life.

This was a core part of my week. I was charged with offering an information literacy lesson to a health class. (Perhaps because it was for health class that the word "holistic" is sticking with me.) One of the most fascinating things about my new position as a high school librarian is the diversity of classes I have the opportunity to teach. The lesson for health class was meant to show how we should be careful of advertising promises and information tools. The lesson preceded a mental health unit as a way to show how our evaluation of information can have positive and negative outcomes on our understanding of our world and thus on our overall outlook on life.

Though I don't usually share the particular lessons I do on my blog, I thought that this one in particular might interest readers. It shows the value of thinking about libraries, archives and museums as an information field. It shows how as professionals, we have a lot to offer beyond our traditional roles. I thought I'd share some ideas from the class and to show how I am using my new role to help people think more about different types of information, how we use information, and how we should use it.

We began with a discussion with what is information and then discussed how we get it. We talked about books and magazine, the Internet, word-of-mouth, media, billboards, objects, and archives... One student talked about getting information through discovery - by manipulating data and things on one's own. YES! (Perfect thinking leading to the "learning lab" we hope to create at school.)

I told the teens to question everything and to ask the following questions any time they are getting information: What are they telling me? Are they selling something? Who is selling this or telling me this? Do they have a vested interest? Why are they pitching it this way? [is there an angle? Should I believe them?] What’s right for me?

Attempting to relate this directly to them and to make it contemporary, I began with the misinformation about the Boston Marathon bombings. I talked about the early misinformation regarding the capture of the bombers. At the time, I had misgivings when the news media announced that they had suspects in custody.  It didn't sound right. Things didn't add up. I showed the students what had come through on Twitter in my feed regarding the news. It was contradictory and passionate. Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon. We are all guilty of that sometimes. My next slide showed an official update saying that indeed no arrest had been made. It basically told us, "Calm down everyone. By spreading misinformation you can mess this whole investigation up."

• We discussed ads. Why is Vitamin Water called Vitamin water. Is it good for you? Why or why not? 
• How does that Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ad from my childhood relate to the Hollinger jeans ad now? (Sex sells from generation to generation.) We also dug deeper. The discussion included an article from my friend Judith Ross, discussing the dangers of distressing blue jeans. The process of sandblasting to create that look is extremely harmful to the workers who create those jeans. Should this go into our decision making process about what we wear? How deep should we dig to find out about
  
  the products we buy? Should we judge them by how they look on a friend? Is just knowing that they look good on us enough? Perhaps it is, but if we do care about how products are made, should we seek this information? 
• We talked about Made in America and what that means. Is it important to understand that "Made in America" does not necessarily mean it is 100 percent made in America? We need to understand that many companies walk a fine line to get that label.
• We picked apart a sneaker ad to figure out who the manufacturer was trying to get to buy this footwear. We decided that it was Justin Bieber fans. In fact, all five classes I taught immediately said Justin Bieber even though he was not mentioned in the ad. That's pretty powerful stuff. We looked at a one star review of the sneaker and a five star review. We read them carefully. One of them was calling the high top a "running shoe." It seemed like it wasn't talking about that shoe at all. Did the students know that some people get paid for writing ads? What should we believe? How can we pick apart information to see what is false information?
• Colleges were a big part of our conversation. Are these 15 year-olds already thinking about college? Where do they want to go and why? What goes into our decision about college? Location, major, size, future opportunities, cost... How are colleges manipulating their decisions through ads? We talked about a few ads. One read: "My purpose To Make a World of Difference." What exactly does that mean? Does it mean anything? Does it mean different things to different people? Are they playing on passions? (of course)

Finally, we discussed the Internet and social media. We discussed putting out information about ourselves as well as taking in information.

• What is the value of Google? What are the drawbacks? Does Google do everything it claims to do? Is the use of Google black and white? Is it a good or bad tool? It is good in the right situation, but we must constantly evaluate the information it gives us and be aware of its flaws AS WITH EVERY INFORMATION TOOL. Why do we use proprietary databases at school? What other places can give us information? Did the students know that Google tries to tailor ads to us based on the information we are giving it? We are their product.
  
• What role does social media play? We should use the right tool for the right job. I asked how the students use Twitter and then showed how I use it to talk to colleagues around the world and not to my friends. (That's what texting and Facebook are for?) We talked about the role Twitter played in the Egyptian Revolution and what a powerful tool it can be. Ah...and then snapchat. The app that lets your posts "disappear." This is very big in many of their worlds. We did a little "close reading" -- really paying attention to key words -- to see what snap chat says about itself:

We left with these main lessons in mind:

INFORMATION IS NOT BLACK AND WHITE

•Liking something doesn’t mean it is right for me

•We may like some things about something and not others. It may be the right product or tool for me OR there may be something better

•The information we get about something often depends on the source

•Sometimes sources purposely hide information

•Always evaluate information for yourself!

Great week in the classroom for the Holistic Librarian! Any questions? ;)

Playing Telephone to Teach Information Literacy

Teachers of information literacy must impart a holistic sense of information to students. While, traditionally, school librarians have taught steps to effectively locate and evaluate information, our prime goal as educators must be to enable students to see the context in which information operates. Thinking about how information is created, shared, and ethically used is vital for information literacy. Students must also learn to recognize that variant points of view about a subject can exist, but information can sometimes be manipulated to try to provide "evidence" for unsubstantiated claims. (Facts are not a point of view.) 

There are many strategies for creating some understanding of information science. One main challenge is overcoming a student belief that they can find any information they need at the touch of a keyboard or click of a mouse. Typing a question or keywords into Google does not demonstrate an ability to efficiently and intelligently fill an information need. We need to break students of bad habits when it comes to information searching and we need to develop better strategies for doing so.

With a holistic approach in mind, the following are some teaching guidelines  when creating a curriculum for information literacy. Students must:

• understand that information is communicated in many forms. 
• realize that not all information is readily available. 
• search for different perspectives that analyze evidence.
• seek the viewpoints of those who are less visible. 
• recognize that the loudest voices are not always the correct ones. 
• realize that not all information is documented. 
• look for the origination of ideas and see primary sources as best evidence.*

Ask a class full of teenagers how many use one of the first five hits they find through Google to answer a question; it is likely that every hand in the room will go up. Ask them who wrote the information on those web pages, if they haven't been taught to evaluate authority and seek authorship, they will look at you with blank stares. Students may have never thought about from where information comes. Google might as well be magic.

A game of telephone 
can boost understanding
about information use

So, to introduce the idea of information as a science, I incorporate a game of telephone into introductory freshmen lessons. This exercise gets students thinking about the creation and distribution of information. In case you have never played:

1. Have a student think of a sentence or two and write it down. 

2. In the in-person/pre-pandemic version, that person will whisper their sentence in the ear of another student.

3. Student 2 whispers what student one said, into student three's ear.

4. Continue the passing of information through whispering until all students have heard the information.

5. Have the last person say the passed on information out loud and confirm against the written version that it was passed on correctly.

It will not be.

Explain that this is how information works. The primary evidence, the original, is the best source of information in terms of accuracy. When others write or otherwise pass on the evidence, it gets changed. Sometimes the meaning changes slightly with paraphrasing. Sometimes people purposefully (perhaps unethically) change the information to deceive. Sometimes the information was not properly conveyed or received and we just do the best we can with what we've got and pass it on. In other words, the farther removed you are from a source, the more likely it is to be incorrect.

Now, in my modified remote learning version of the game, we have the opportunity to do more than just whisper in a classmate's ear. I hope to try this version next year. Students can distribute their information in alternate ways. Have student one write some information to share with others. I think a short scenario might work well when we are talking about recorded information - something not too long, but not too short. Students can choose how they wish to share the information with one other person, but they must re-write it rather than forwarding or cutting and pasting. They can Snapchat, text, or post to Instagram. They can Email the information or snail mail it. They can tweet it or DM through Facebook. They can even call another student or use video chat to relay information verbally. I can see this exercise taking a few days, demonstrating how information travels through various channels and over time.

Weaving information literacy into lessons throughout the year, continually remind students about the lessons learned in telephone. Remind them that it is their challenge to find the best information, to seek the source, and to not assume that the original answer they find is accurate. Through one lesson at a time, convey concepts that demonstrate how the concepts of information science allow one to confidently find the right information, not just the easiest to find information.

Curiosity Did Not Kill the Cat. We Are Killing Curiosity.

Have you ever traveled on public transportation with your head buried in your phone the whole time? I like to sit and look around for awhile. I'm aware of the people with whom I am traveling. I note things about my surroundings. What colors are around me? Is it hot or cold on this bus? Does this train sound like my beloved Boston (subway) T or Amtrak? I look at the ads. I decipher what I'm seeing. Then, I may bury my head in my phone or a book for awhile.

When I was in college, I remember constantly exploring. I'd walk through educational halls reading posters. I'd stop at professors doors and read quotes they liked to hang up. I actually put quotes on my own office door in my library as a professional, but I rarely see anyone reading my Calvin and Hobbes comics or my Teddy Roosevelt sayings about believing in yourself. If students wait outside my door, their heads are usually buried in their phones. How much are they missing about their surroundings?

According to the American Library Association, "Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information." For the school librarian, the process of cultivating curiosity is part of the teaching of information literacy. The goal of the school librarian should be to encourage students to slow down, look around, think, and ask questions.

When one passively absorbs information, one is not truly engaged with the building of knowledge. Passive absorption of information, such as when one reads though Twitter posts or snapchats, can discourage a holistic view of knowledge. Teachers must encourage students to absorb and decipher information. This involves helping students to be curious about everything that they encounter. This involves asking questions.

I recognize that I need information about the people and places around me so that I better understand my own place in the world. I submit that my students do not recognize this in themselves. Information literacy is endangered in this modern society because of multiple factors:

1. Too much information is overwhelming and tends to shut down one's desire to decipher what is really happening.

2. The ability to disseminate information is so easy that poor quality information abounds, making it more difficult to decipher good information from bad.

3. Modern technology encourages us to bury our heads in devices and to passively swipe left, burying our curiosity.

4. The fast pace of life, encouraged in part by almost instantaneous access to information, discourages people from listening attentively and slowing down to be fully present. 

Answers sometimes kill questions. When answers come to quickly, we forget to ask questions.

I want my students to ask as many questions as needed to ensure they fully understand the information in front of them. We should add our questions' answers to our store of knowledge. Shake them up inside of us and then thread a needle in and out of new knowledge to stitch the information to our sense of self. What do I know? What do I not know? What else can I learn? How can I make myself better through knowledge? How can my own knowledge, skills, and ability to learn help change the world?

Scientists don't fully understand curiosity, but curiosity is a rich subject for research. I do know that curiosity does not always come naturally, it can be killed, and it must be encouraged. Teach your students the 8 habits of curious people and help them cultivate them through continual inquiry. Curiosity won't kill you. It will only make you stronger. 

My Year in Review

This year brought a lot of new changes both personally and professionally. Putting some medical issues behind me, I altered my career path a bit and took on the role of Information specialist / librarian at Goffstown High School in New Hampshire. In this position, I have had the opportunity to imagine the perfect library and the perfect way to share knowledge of information with young people. I have also had the opportunity on my own to do a lot of public speaking, some one-on-one consulting with institutions, and networking with new colleagues around the world.

School

At Goffstown I've introduced a school archives. We are preparing for the 50th anniversary celebration of our school building in 2015. We have established a cooperative relationship with other local school libraries, the historical society, and the public library to most effectively bring information services and materials to our students. We have established a pen pal program with teens in Botswana. We have developed an internal school blog and information network to share ideas.We are introducing independent study classes so students can delve into aspects of information science that most interest them. I am working with the freshman class teachers to establish a standard for introducing research and information to their classes. We are preparing a long-range plan to establish the library as a "learning lab." There is so much going on and so much enthusiasm from our school community that I feel greatly energized, uplifted, and motivated. Looking at the information professions with a "Holistic" approach enables me to show young people that sharing information is more than randomly tweeting to one's friends. Information can be a very powerful tool.

Speaking

This year I have had the opportunity to do more speaking at public libraries and historical societies. I also worked with a colleague to talk about our tips on social media with the New England Museum Association. The New England Archivists featured an interview with me in their recent newsletter and I led a panel at their last conference to address the topic of alternate career paths for archivists. I have also "discovered" online interviews. I was interviewed by Chick History for a podcast about Ida Annah Ryan, a hero of mine whom I discovered in the Waltham Public Library's archives when I worked as a young archivist. Most recently, I was interviewed at Fieldstone Common's Blog Radio program about caring for personal papers and documenting personal stories.

Social Media

Social media is no longer in the early adopter phase. Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the rest are intricately entwined in our professional lives. I have met more colleagues overseas. I am meeting new colleagues in the education field where I am exploring ideas of how information specialists can supplement and support the school curriculum.  Archivists, museum professionals and librarians continue to have an important and unique role to play in information. I plan to assist my colleagues around the world with understanding where information can take us and to excite young people about the opportunities proper use of information can afford us.

Consulting

I continue to consult in my off time (whenever that is). I wound up three projects before beginning at school. I have a new book in the works (in my head and getting bantered about on long walks) with a professor of education at St. Anselm's University. We plan to write about how my field and experiences can influence hers. Very exciting stuff (for me anyway)!

But that's enough seriousness. Librarian in Black has inspired me to write about other aspects of my year:

Book - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
New Craze - Steampunk
Show - Dr. Who 2012 Christmas special
Movie - My Fair Lady (Audrey Hepburn always and forever)
Favorite event - Watch City Festival 
Personal accomplishment - singing Karaoke in a bar
Professional accomplishment - beat boxing in front of a room full of high school students
Alter Ego - Steampunk librarian

Peace out all! Happy New Year!

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop: This is How We Shopped

Antiquing with a Purpose

Like most people who frequent antique shops, I am on the lookout for objects with personal meaning or for my own eclectic interests. I am a collector in a few areas that are not directly related to my work (mostly glass) and it is certainly fun to hit the shops with particular objects to fill home crannies in mind.

I have "antiqued" for the past ten years or so with a different purpose too. While working primarily as an archival consultant, my finds were used for highlighting archives preservation and other archival methods for my adult audiences. I now seek things to educate in a different way. My antique shop excursions have taken on a higher meaning (so to speak) as a librarian / Information Specialist at a high school. I seek to connect the past to the present so that students have a better appreciation for what came before. I seek to make the past tangible so that it is more immediate and so that it seems more pertinent to the lives of young adults.

One of the most important parts of my job is getting familiar with school curriculum and lessons so that I can supplement classroom activities with appropriate information sources. By making the past real, by showing that real people are connected to classroom concepts, I hope that students see their studies from a more holistic perspective. And so, I antique with that purpose in mind.

A Lesson in Personal Finance

I recently learned that the Economics classes focus a project on personal finance. So, something that would normally catch my eye, but then have me walk away, drew me in at the antique shop this week. A Charga-plate charge card stared at me from its glass case and I began to wonder about it. I purchased it.

I was accustomed to the 19th century ledgers that I see all the time in archives. Those ledgers always made me think of the show Little House on the Prairie, when Mr. or Mrs. Olsen would pull the credit book out from under the counter and write the Ingalls name in it. Mrs. Olsen always filled out the ledger with a sigh and a dig such as, "You know we are ALWAYS extending credit to you and that is such a hardship for MY family!"

But what did a credit card mean? What did it tell us about the holder? I can't picture my grandparents living in New York City with one in the 1950s. My grandmother, who would go out to pick out her own chicken for dinner to have it freshly killed, surely didn't have one of these? I need to ask my mother about that. And some research was in order.

According to the Dead Media Archive of NYU The idea of a credit "card" started in the 1920s as a credit coin.

The coin functioned as both an accounting and authentication device. The only information on the credit coin was the name of the store and a number representing the customer. The customer’s name and address still had to be written out by hand and was prone to human error. This often lead to discrepancies between the information maintained in the customer’s credit file and the information provided at the point of service. The Farrington Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts developed the Charga-Plate to solve precisely this problem. A small metal plate was embossed with the customer’s name, address, and account number. A customer would present this plate at the point of purchase; the merchant would then fix the plate into a manual hand-held press that would then imprint the customer’s information onto a sales bill. The original press required downward pressure, unlike the roller platen press that would later become more common.

The Charga-Plate was wildly successful. The first store to implement the system in 1928 issued 93,000 plates within the first month. This success had much to do with its standardizing effect at both the front (sales counter) and back (accounting) end.

Some sites that I came across while browsing the Internet indicated that the card was indeed regarded as a status symbol. The fine leather pouch my purchased card came in is indicative of that. As an example, the holder of my card was identified in the metal imprint as a "Miss." Did that mean she was a woman of some means with her own money, which was unusual in the mid-twentieth century?

It is funny how that idea of credit changed in a relatively short time. Did it go from a necessity for survival to being representative of trustworthiness - as in someone was willing to issue you this card and therefore we know that you can pay your debts?  What a good research project this would be... Perhaps for one of my fine students?

• What information did you have to give the credit card company to be issued a card?
• Was the Charga-plate company vouching for you or were there various banks supporting this new system?
• How did this system grow over time? How many people started with charge cards and what were the statistics on its growth over the decades?
• What other companies were issuing charge "plates?"
• How old were people who generally got these cards in the 50s? What is the average age of credit card holders now? How old did you have to be to get a credit card then? Now? Why the change if there is one?

As I left the antique store, I bumped into a colleague who is older than I. "Did you find anything good today, Melissa?" He asked.

"Oh yes. I found this!"

As I handed over the little card my friend said, "Ah, my mother had one of those..." I wonder how much longer any of us will have cards of this sort. We went from ledgers, to metal, to plastic and now we are slowly moving to phones and other identifiers for payment. The cards started in the 1920s. Will they be gone by the 2020s?

***

Temple University has a great image of a Charga-Plate employee making cards. See the Temple University Libraries Urban Archives.

Words as a Barrier to Understanding. Is It Time to Evolve Beyond Library and Archives?

You say library. They say books...They say books are dead.

You say archives. They say paper...They say everything is digital these days.

I rolled words through my head when I suggested this week that a student should consider a job in the library field and it got back to me that her mother said this is a bad idea. "'Libraries' probably won't exist in a few years, " she apparently told her daughter. I thought back to when I started in this job.

"Do you want to be called the 'Librarian' or 'Information Specialist,' Melissa?" they asked when I began. They were getting ready to put my title on my office window.

"I don't care what you call me because I am confident in what I am and I can explain it to others," I said. I thought the term "Information Specialist" was hoity-toity. I told myself that I've always been a librarian and an archivist.

A few months later I remembered that I coined "cultural heritage consultant" for my work with ArchivesInfo because the words DID matter. No one knows what any of it means, but cultural heritage consultant showed that I did something outside of JUST archives and libraries, whatever the audience thought JUST archives and libraries were. Once I grab someone's attention, the door is then open for me to explain more about what I do.

When I said to my student, "you may want to work in a library," it served as a brick wall. People have preconceived notions of what a library is. Yet, the cultural heritage professions have anything but preconceived notions these days. Libraries, archives and museums are community centers, storage facilities, places for research, knowledge centers, places for networking, educational facilities, creative hubs...We are striving to open doors and our traditional words can be limiting. Indeed, we have also had concerns about our words being hijacked and re-purposed. For example, "archive" as a verb has been discussed at length. Maybe we do need to find new words and phrases that better explain who we are and what we do?

"Information Specialist" connotes knowledge of a wide-range of information beyond the book. I've come to like the holistic feel of it.  It can mean anything - an understanding of where to find any information at all is how I like to think of it. The term applied to me and to what I do also takes into account my archives background and the school archives I am beginning. It acknowledges the crafting we do in our library, the makerspace we are beginning, the music we introduce to our students, the exhibits we set up... So, I now go by Librarian / Information Specialist. I want the idea of books in my students' heads, but I want the idea of libraries and librarians as evolving beyond the book in there too.

So who are we and what do we want to be as professionals? Do we need to take a fresh look at our job titles to better explain what we do now and where our professions are going?