|
Aaron Coutu |
|
|
Greenville Public Library |
(401) 949-3630 x103 - Work* |
|
573 Putnam Pike |
(401) 568-1136 - Home |
|
Greenville, RI 02828 |
(401) 215-3279 - Cell |
|
*Please call the work number only in case of emergency. |
|
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will focus on planning, evaluation, and programming in public libraries, with an emphasis on community analysis and responsive services.
GOAL: To familiarize students with the concepts, philosophy, and ethics of public library serivce and management and with the role of the public library in society.
OBJECTIVES: Work in this course will reinforce or emphasize the following GSLIS Educational Outcomes as they apply to public library services:
Any student with
a documented disability is welcome to contact me as early in
the semester as possible so that we may arrange reasonable accommodations.
As
part of this process, please be in touch with Disability Services for
Students
office at 330 Memorial Union. 874-2098.
Assignment
Summary
Your grade will be based on the following assignments:
Please check the assignments section of the site for detailed rubrics for each project
For general guidelines, review the Requirements page before submitting your assignment.
Interpretation of grades: A grade of B on an assignment in this course will mean that you have met the basic requirements for the assignment; your performance would be acceptable on a professional level. A grade of A will mean that your performance is not only acceptable, but distinguished. A grade of C for graduate students indicates failure to perform at an acceptable level for graduate credit.
Individual assignments will be graded according to rubrics on a scale of 1 (Little Evidence of the Standard) to 5 (Well Above the Standard).
Q. Why do the rubrics on the assignment pages go only from 2 to 4?
A. The instructor does not expect any of you to
score below a 3 (that is, a B); and to earn a 5 (or an A) implies that you go
beyond the mechanical attempt to do what the instructor wants and make the
assignment your own, distinguishing yourself in ways that may be quite
unpredictable but recognizably excellent.
Community
Inventory
Due: 9/30
The purpose of this assignment is to do a quick community scan, finding as much publicly available data as possible, and learning as much as you can without actually undertaking surveys, focus groups, interviews, or other formal research.
Such data may be meaningless without interpretation. Your town's total population and area, for instance, may sound like dull figures -- but if your population density is very low, is it also spread out? Does that indicate a need for bookmobile services? And what about the percentage of paople who commute out of town to work -- does that show there might be a need for hours of operation early in the morning or in the evening or even a larger audiobook collection? If the number of residents in their late teens far exceeds the number in high school, should you be concerned about the drop-out rate? What if there is a burgeoning population of senior citizens, teens, or young children ... and how would that drive the services you provide?
As you scan your community, pay special attention to areas where public library services may be needed. The data you collect may help support a grant application -- and the questions about other community agencies may help steer you toward likely grant collaborators.
Procedure:
Start with the attached form. You may revise the inventory for your chosen community (whether it's where you work, where you live, or a different town you choose to investigate). You do not have to stick slavishly to the exact list of questions given; use them as a jumping off point to demonstrate your own ingenuity at finding and interpreting community data for use in public library services. Also, feel free to ask some of your own questions that arise as a result of your research or you think there are important areas of information that should be researched as a result of unique characteristics of your community.
Format:
Sources to try:
Important: In gathering your information, use published sources as far as possible. If it is necessary to question librarians or other professionals, schedule a time which is mutually convenient. Do not push for answers if your informant is reluctant to give them. Although this looks like a fill-in-the-blank assignment, it's okay to leave some blanks; your analysis of the information you do have is most important, and your perceptions of what is missing, why it is missing, and how important it might be to acquire it will also be interesting.
Also, do not be afraid to try some unconventional sources of information. For example, the town's official website could be a treasure-trove of information about your library's target population. You may also want to check out sources such as your state or town's department of education or school department. Partnering agencies within your town, such as TriTown Community Services or local welfare agency, may also provide valuable information. They may include demographic information specific to the youth population in time. Also, do not forget about children in your town who are homeschooled or attend a private school!
Effective location and use of community information sources, 40%; perceptive comments on the implications of information found, 40%; form (organization, grammar, format, etc.), 20%.
4. Above the Standard (B+ or A-)
3. Meets the Standard (B)
2. Below the Standard (C+ or B-)
Community Inventory Form
DO YOU KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY?
The following are some of the questions a good librarian should ask about the community being served. The answers can form the basis for developing a service policy for the youth of the community.
I. Within the geographic area served by the library:
[Are these the most important questions you want to ask about the public library's relationship to the community at large? What should be added to this list, or subtracted from it, and why? What are the implications of your community's answers to the questions?]
II. The structure of the school system is vital information. Is it divided into traditional elementary/junior/senior high schools? If it has middle schools, what grades are included? Other variations, such as K-12? For the school system as a whole:
[What would this mean to you as a public youth services librarian? How would you use this information?]
III. For each school (public or independent) in your service area, answer the following questions (consider college pupulations as well as these students may visity your library):
[For purposes of this assignment, you may not want to answer these questions for all the schools in your municipality. It may depend on size; if you work at a branch of a big city library, you may want to focus just on local schools. But are there other questions you would want to pursue?]
IV. Adults also have a number of unique characteristics due to their age :
[How would these types of question affect what services the library offers and how they are presented and funded?]
Service Plan & Grant Proposal
Project Due: 12/12 (Your overall Programming Plan should be posted to the Sakai site by the end of the day on Sunday, December 6 while your detailed program/grant proposal can be provided on December 12 in the form of handouts to the whole class)
Learning about the patron base within your community through an inventory is important so you can identify the characteristics and needs of those within your service population. It is also just as important to apply this information and address those needs when planning programming and services.
The purpose of this assignment is to take the information and conclusions you identified in your community inventory and design, schedule, promote, present, and evaluate programs and services for all within your community. Programs can and should address the needs and interests of those working with the area's various population groups.
Feel free to design this programming plan for the library in which you work or your local library!
Procedure:
Start with an introductory section highlighting the needs identified in the
community inventory you completed earlier in the semester. These needs should be the basis for
considering new services and programs at your library. I am looking for you to
think outside of the box and beyond our usual offerings of storytime and
traditional book discussion groups, though perhaps you have identified a need
for a different spin on these such as presenting these programs in a language
other than English. Look to
outreach services like home delivery and off-site programming if that is what
your community calls for based on your community inventory results.
Format:
1. The Service Plan: Provide a list of the new programs or services you
would offer if you could . There should be a minimum of 10 programs each month.
á There should be at least 2 suggestions for ages Pre-K through Grade 5;
á There should be at least 2 suggestion for tweens;
á There should be at least 2 suggestions for young adults;
á There should be at least 2 suggestions for adults;
á There should be at least 2 suggestions for unique populations. They might be the elderly, an ethnic or racial group, a language group, a group with certain shared disabilities, or some other population that is unique to your community
At least three of the programs should include collaboration with a community organization, school, or other agency within the service area.
For the sake of this assignment, you will need to consider the following details for each program:
When presenting the information, you can use a form that is creative. While you can feel free to use a form of your own creation that includes the necessary information (Access, PowerPoint), you can also present the necessary data in the form of an article or press release to the local newspaper, a newsletter, a Director's report, or any other form. The most important thing is that you include all of the necessary information, particularly the justification for including the program as it relates the community needs highlighted by the Community Analysis project.
This is the part of the project that must be turned on no later than Sunday, December 6.
2. Grant Proposal: Select one of the programs that you have scheduled and fully plan the program in order to use it to create a real grant proposal. The plan should include the following, since the idea is to build a program as if you really intended on presenting it:
You will have to seek out a real grant source for this part of the project. The grant request should be made to a real grant-providing source with supporting information about the grant source (this includes the reasoning why the grantor source was chosen) given to the instructor alone. The information should be presented in the format required by the grant-providing source. This could be in the form of a letter of inquiry, an actual grant application, or other format as designated by the granting source. Proof of your program/serviceÕs eligibility for the grant should be provided. (ie. Information about eligibility requirements can be drawn from the grantorÕs website or from sources such as the Foundation Directory or other similar resources as discussed in class or available in your area.)
Make sure to bring copies of your detailed program/service outline for the instructor and all of your classmates. You may opt to post these materials online, but if you do so, they must remain available at that location for a complete calendar year. The grant aspect only needs to be provided to the instructor.
Rather than having you provide oral presentations at the final face-to-face class, we are going to have a round-robin discussion about the programming process itself and how it relates to your community analysis projects. This will allow discussion of challenges, details, and other items of particular interest about the process you used for this assignment and how you feel it reflects the real world tasks and responsibilities of being a librarian at a public library. After the plans are posted online (the plans are due by midnight on Sunday, December 6), you should all browse over the projects to prepare for this discussion.
Criteria for grading:
Programming plan and supporting comments, 40%, Program outline, 40%, Form
(organization, grammar, format, etc.), 20%.
4. Above the standard (B+ or A-)
3. Meets the Standard (B)
2. Below the Standard (C+ or B-)
Each student will choose a week during the class cycle in which to do some exploratory reading on the topic being covered in the reading and lectures. You may draw on the class bibliography, sources used for the lecture modules, readings mentioned in the texts, or readings that you find through your own research (consulting the Wilson database Library Literature [User ID: gslis & Password: horse] is very helpful). Provide a citation for each reading with the author, title, publisher/journal/website and copyright date/issue/access date. In the case of journal articles or chapters from books, indicate the page numbers. Give an annotation briefly summarizing and evaluating the reading.
Based on the information you have researched, the information from the text, and from the lecture modules, develop and present questions to initiate and maintain the discussion for that week. Your citations, annotations, and initial questions should be posted on the Wednesday that begins the week for that topic. Your responsibility for the discussion ends the following Wednesday, even though discussion will remain open for a month. Feel free to continue to be involved in the discussion until your topic is closed. After the end of the second week of your discussion topic, post a summary of the discussion highlights, not longer than one page, in the discussion area for your topic with the subject heading Òsummary.Ó
These posts should be in addition to your other postings. The number of posts presented by fellow classmates in response to the presented questions along with the relevance and significance of the discussion will be a part of the evaluation of the leadership module. The instructor is likely to jump into the discussion part way through the week with comments and follow-up questions.
You should also feel free to support further discussion by asking questions, providing comments, or requesting clarification/further details in response to your fellow classmates posts in relation to your discussion area.
Note: The Discussion Leadership Module topic should be different from the one you have chosen to cover in your Topical Paper.
Quantity of sources (20%); substance of presentation (20%); discussion resulting (25%); annotations (20%); form (15%)
4. Above the Standard (B+ or A-)
3. Meets the Standard (B)
2. Below the Standard (C+ or B-)
Participation
In the fall of 2009, most participation will be on-line through the Sakai discussion areas. That means that students must actively attempt to discuss the topics being covered in the weekly lecture or content module and readings.
Lecture or content modules will be posted each week on Wednesday. Feel free to start the discussion once those notes have been posted. Discussion on each topic will close one month later or on December 16, whichever comes first. Discussion topics will be provided for each week, and each topic will be archived at the end of two weeks, to keep our inboxes from getting too unwieldy. Also, discussion questions will come from a student discussion leader in their Discussion Leadership Module or at the end of the Content Module. To participate, you may:
This list is far from exhaustive. Substantive posts should not be very long, but should communicate interesting ideas and/or information. Other necessary posts – like requests for clarification of assignments – can be sent to their own topics – like "Questions about the Course " – and arenÕt exactly part of the discussion. Professionally interesting but off-topic subjects can be explored in the "Coffee Break." Messages to a single person – like "That was a super presentation," or "Was the grade you posted for me a typo?" – should be sent via "Mail."
And messages like "Oops -- I made a typo in that last post, but I've fixed it, and here's the correct version" shouldn't be made at all, if we can help it! Do your proofreading before you post. Two hints about formatting in WebCT:
Q.
Do spelling and grammar count?
A. For this assignment they don't, unless they interfere with comprehension.
The instructor is always favorably impressed by good standard English, but
spontaneous discussion of ideas and content is more important.
Q.
Sakai counts how many threads you start and how many you respond to. Does
initiating a thread count more toward your participation grade than
responding?
A. No. What matters is to keep a good discussion going; so relevance and
interest count more than who wrote first.
Q.
What does the instructor mean by "substantive"?
A. Meaty. Informative. Interesting. It doesn't have to be long (remember, even
the facilitators aren't supposed to post more than 2 pages worth at a time);
but it should at least be long enough so that readers will pick up the context
without having to go back to the message you're answering. Example:
When you take somebody's idea and elaborate, add examples, or give it your own unique spin, you're adding intellectual content as well as collegiality to the discussion.
It is important to remember that participating just before the close of discussion on a regular basis does NOT mean you are participating in the discussion. While we all have personal situations that pop up from time to time preventing us from staying on top of the discussion, most of your posting should take place prior to the summary of the discussion by that week's student discussion leader(s).
Note – After two weeks, each discussion leader will post a summary of the discussion so far for that topic. Feel free to reply to a discussion summary for a discussion in which you have not been participating.
Criteria for grading
4. Above the Standard (B+ or A-)
3. Meets the Standard (B)
2. Approaches the Standard (C+ or B-)
Assignment & Class Requirements
Readings
Three textbooks will be used with this class. The first, which has been
ordered for you at the URI Bookstore on the Providence Campus is a required
text. The second two are also available through the book store, but are not
required. While they will nicely
supplement our discussions, I understand the tight economics of being a
student. If you wanted to choose
between these two recommended titles, I would suggest the final book.
You are also urged to read as widely as possible in the current professional literature. The course reading list should provide starting points, and you are encouraged to share with classmates any good relevant material you find.
Handing
in Work
Your work must be turned in when it is due. Work handed in late without
an acceptable excuse will be downgraded.
Since LSC 521 is an on-line Sakai course, it is expected that you will submit assignments to the course instructor via e-mail. Your program presentation would be an exception to this since it will be presented to the class during our face-to-face meeting:
If you send it to me as an attachment, please make it easy to read, download, file and retrieve. This is really a plea for consideration -- the more time I spend handling your file, the less time I have to respond meaningfully to your actual work.
Using
citations
Pick a good style manual and use it consistently. For quick refreshers
on MLA and APA format, visit Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL):
Remember to use footnotes, endnotes or parenthetical citations not only when you're quoting verbatim, but also whenever you're using specific facts (numbers, dates) or authoritative opinions for which you can trace a source. Two good reasons for citation:
If you are not quite sure when citation is called for and why, please visit this site: "Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Recognize and Avoid It": http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
Function matters more than form in this class, but do make sure to spell the names of your authors right, underline or italicize journal titles, and provide dates of publication. (Hint: If you photocopy a journal article, write the date on your copy before reshelving the journal. For online style manuals, check out the reference section at the Internet Public Library, http://www.ipl.org.)
Work submitted toward the end of the semester will be graded and returned to you by the last class if possible. Most of your work will be submitted online, in a compatible form, so the instructor will be able to edit it and make comments in Word. Work submitted in person or by snail mail can be returned to you by mail if accompanied by a self-addressed envelope with adequate postage (you can cover all contingencies by just paper-clipping the postage to the inside of the envelope).
Academic
Tone
In most of your assignments, you will want to aim for a business-like tone
– academic but not stuffy.
User-centered approaches are most desirable. If you are not yet a practicing librarian with users to observe, you can draw on observation of other public libraries and school media centers, and – of course! – on review of the professional literature; so not yet having a library of your own doesn't have to be a handicap. The important thing is that as professional librarians we consider the needs and interests of users before our own needs and interests.
Writing
and Presenting )nline
Communicating online is different from communicating in print. For
instance, people tend to read much more slowly online, and to focus their
attention differently; so good websites usually limit the length of text and
the amount of scrolling viewers need to do. Web designers have access to cool
graphics -- it's tempting to use richly textured backgrounds and distinctive
fonts -- but remember, legibility is important. Readers do better with dark
fonts over pale, uncluttered backgrounds. Following are a number of resources
you may want to consult as you develop your online presentations. One thing
most of them don't address in detail is the importance of matching your
presentation style to your audience and purpose -- so when it comes to writing
a term paper, even if you plan to make it available online, take them with a
grain of salt. Academic propriety still matters most, and a bulleted list may
not be the best way to show your instructor the reasoning that connects your
main points.
Writing help: If you would like advice on writing, check out the URI Writing Center. Appointments are encouraged (call them at 401-874-2367), but you may also drop in and see if a tutor is available. For more information, go to URI Writing Center's website at http://www.uri.edu/artsci/writing/center/index.shtml.