Keeping Up with Reference: The True Value of a Reliable Reviewing Source

Things change quickly in the world of reference. Technology has us all wondering what the next new "thing" will be and keeping up with these changes can be a job in itself. Where we used to be concerned mainly with what new print resources were available, librarians now have to keep track of new developments in the areas of e-books, databases, and apps, and the list keeps growing. As a library's budget is cut, and oftentimes staff right along with it, librarians are forced to choose between face time with their patrons and keeping up with the latest news in the industry that will help their library run smoothly.

Now more than ever, Librarians need to turn to trusted sources to help them keep current on what new products are coming out, what updates have been made to important resources, and who's merging their resources to create bigger and better products. It all comes down to one thing: where should you spend your library's precious dollars.


In the long run, turning to a trusted reviewing source can save you time and money. Why?


1. It lets some else keep up with the swift changes in the industry. If you're like most people with a little money to spend then you are probably bombarded with advertisements, e-mail campaigns, listservs, and press releases. Countless hours can be spent pouring over these ads, hours that may very well be better spent working with patrons or creating new services for your library. A good reviewing source will continually be mining the latest products on the market and give you access to reliable information about those in one place, and in an easy-to-search format.


2. It allows you to rely on the opinion of your peers, not on the hype. It's a company's job to make you believe that their product is the "best" and they'll spare no expense to make you believe that. Your library peers, however, have a different and more valuable perspective. A good reviewing source looks to librarians working in the field, creating their own collections, to provide you with the best advice on how new reference products can be used in a library setting. Most librarians have strong opinions on what works for their patrons. Dialog between librarians should be the driving force of a professional reviewing source.


3. It will help you discover how new products in the field compare to the products your library already owns. Libraries are full of materials—print and digital. Some are well used and some, unfortunately, are not used at all. Very rarely is a new product the very first of its kind. Most products out there have strong similarities with other titles on the market. Before you are tempted to buy the latest and greatest of any new product, you should find out how it compares to other resources that your library already owns. Sometimes it will be worth the investment and other times you'll discover that what you've got is perfectly fine (or even better) than the new product with all its bells and whistles. Once again, let your peers and experts in the subject give you some advice and share their professional insight.




4. It allows you to search by the topics your library's interested in, but gives you the option to look at everything else available. It's a good bet that you know the topics your patron's are interested in and what areas of your collection need new life. A good reviewing source will save you time by providing you easy access to the latest resources in the subjects you're interested in. Keyword searching, subject headings, and the ability to limit searches by publication date all help pinpoint your research and save you time in the long run. However, even though you have specific subjects you're interested in it's always nice to have the option to search other topics. A good reviewing source will allow you to limit your searches, but be comprehensive enough that you can find things you never even knew were out there.


There are several strong reference reviewing sources on the market. American Reference Books Annual, which has been published by Libraries Unlimited for over 40 years, offers all of the benefits of a reviewing source listed above—critical reviews that offer strong comparisons between like sources, reviews written by professionals within the field, and a comprehensive look at all resources on the market today. Used diligently, a top-notch reviewing source can save your library money in the long run by helping you pick the best resources for your library while also allowing you to do your job more effectively and efficiently.

-- Shannon Graff Hysell
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Shannon Graff Hysell has been editor of American Reference Books Annual for the past ten years. She is also editor of Recommended Reference Books for Small and Medium-sized Libraries and Media Centers and ARBAonline.

What is a Wiki?

What is a Wiki? 

The 21st-century educator and media specialist have an array of Web 2.0 tools to utilize in their endeavor to make resources available for the students and staff they serve. Web 2.0 is based on user participation that encourages open communication, allows for data to be controlled by many people, and inspires teamwork. In education, it can be used as a vehicle that allows teachers to connect, communicate, and collaborate. Our students use Web 2.0 tools on a daily basis in the form of blogs, tweets, and Facebook postings. Teachers who want to maximize their ability to relate to today's student must know what their students know about technology, and must be able to learn with the same tools students learn with every day.

Although there is a place for all of these tools in the pursuit of their goals, perhaps one of education's greatest tools is the wiki. It is a tool that allows the media specialist and teacher to demonstrate collaborative and leadership skills that serve students in supportive ways. Wikis can be the most effective tool we have in today's educational setting, where time to collaborate face-to-face has almost disappeared. 

The word wiki derives from a Hawaiian word that means quick. This definition is applicable to this tool, as a wiki is a Web site that can be created in a hurry. Wikis have many uses, among which are managing information, knowledge, and ideas. In today's world of fast-paced, highpressure, high-stakes learning, educators have a specific need to manage the tremendous amount of information available to their students. We can no longer ignore the fact that the remarkable amount of information, tools, and strategies available to today's teachers and students needs managing and organizing in order to be useful. Wikis can bring order to this information overload phenomena and help students make sense of facts, statistics, details, and data they collect while doing research or even while browsing for information. Moreover, teachers as well as students increasingly need to do this managing in a minimal amount of time, which is precious. They also need a vehicle that is of nominal cost or free to use. (Free is the universal keyword to educators everywhere!)

The most well-known and most used wiki today is Wikipedia, which has developed into a huge free, collaborative, Web-based, multilingual encyclopedia. It grows larger every day as users add to the base of knowledge and correct misinformation others have posted there. While the editors strive for accuracy in this source, many articles are not verifiable or are out-and-out wrong. Because the information on Wikipedia cannot be considered authoritative, this wiki has developed a tarnished reputation. While the content is generally factual, many school districts will not allow students to cite Wikipedia articles in research. However, students still tend to gravitate to Wikipedia frequently for their own purposes in gathering information.

So, given the popularity of wiki use, what is the value of wikis in education today? Even though today's students are probably the best multitaskers the world has ever produced, the sheer amount of information they take in can be overwhelming and block them from spontaneously doing the higher-level thinking that is required for analysis and synthesis. Educators looking for a method of improving the environment for these students to facilitate information management will find that wikis can provide them with an instrument that will systematize, organize, classify, and categorize knowledge, information, statistics, and ideas. These elements serve to enhance student learning. Wikis are not only beneficial to teachers and media specialists but are extremely helpful to students.

There are three types of wikis that educators will find helpful: the library wiki, the reciprocal wiki, and the student-produced wiki.

A library wiki provides a storehouse for resources, information, documents, and audiovisual artifacts that the user collects for a particular purpose. It is usually locked down, or secured, so that users of the wiki cannot alter the information it contains; however, users can comment on the information.

One of the best uses for a library wiki is one that systematically lists information, resources, and directions for a student-centered alternative assessment project. The product of this type of project assignment can be anything from a formal research paper to an oral presentation, Power Point, podcast, or video production. The library wiki warehouses safe online resources; teacher-directed instructions; links to useful interactive
sites; as well as images, video, audio, documents, or other materials that students may or may not need to complete a particular assignment. A library wiki becomes an online extension of the media specialist, as it leads students to relevant, safe, unbiased, and factual knowledge that they can analyze and synthesize into the final product. This type of direction is most useful to students who are just learning how to do research, how to cite sources, and how to use information they get without plagiarizing the source material.

Another use for the library wiki is for communication of school-based information for staff, because it can maintain a secure file of data that teachers and staff need to access on a regular basis. This type of wiki will become the place where teachers could find important information without searching files of e-mails or documents on their personal computers.

The reciprocal wiki is an online tool used by educators and media specialists to collaborate with classroom teachers, students, and parents. It is used primarily for organization and brainstorming. It can take the form of to-do lists, planning guides, curriculum plans, forecasting charts, or schedules. The purpose of this type of wiki is to enable diverse groups to work in partnership to achieve a common goal. They offer collaborative online storage space to create, revise, enhance and modify documents of all types and offer the choice of making the wiki a private (open just to designated individuals) or public (open to everyone) site.

The Student-Produced Wiki
More than any other Web 2.0 tool or application, wikis represent access to total open content. This fact alone appeals to the 21st-century student, who texts, tweets, chats, and blogs on a daily basis. Online collaboration with other students and teachers is engaging to students, who quickly learn the procedural steps in wiki creation and usually are not afraid to experiment with the features wikis provide. This leads to exciting shared community conversation and development of documents and projects. While the student-produced wiki is not a good vehicle for publishing, its real power is in the collaboration of developing, revising, and maintaining research, as well as sharing findings with a larger audience.

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Read More...

Adapted from Wikis: The Educator's Power Tool
Kay Teehan
Linworth, 9/2010

Wikis provides information on the ABC's of Producing a Wiki, in-depth information on each type of wiki, helpful organizational charts, copyright considerations, using wikis with foreign language students, and more.

Blanche Woolls on Crash Course Series for Librarians

The Crash Course Series [a series from Libraries Unlimited currently consisting of 15 titles] was created to help librarians working in small rural libraries who needed a quick introduction to a variety of management topics. The books have been found useful by persons working in a larger system who may be asked to move from their assignment to another area in a temporary situation, such as a reference librarian who must assist in the children's room. -- Blanche Woolls, Director and Professor Emerita, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, and past president of the AASL and IASL.

Blanche Woolls sits down with us at ALA Annual to discuss this important series.

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For more author interviews, tune in to our YouTube channel: ABCCLIOLive.

LMC@The Forefront Professional Development Webinars

ABC-CLIO is proud to be a sponsor of LMC@The Forefront for the Fall 2010 season. The popular live, web-delivered professional development workshops provide an excellent and affordable opportunity to explore and strengthen skills in school library and education practices with esteemed authors and education practice innovators. Each one-hour Webinar will include ample time for questions and exchanging thoughts during the Q&A.

Visit www.librarymediaconnection.com for a list of upcoming Webinars and a registration form.

Free Information Literacy Vodcast Series with Mike Eisenberg

We are excited to partner with Big6’s Mike Eisenberg to bring you an exclusive series of vodcasts. Each month we will release a new chapter in the Mike Eisenberg Information Literacy Series, so stay tuned for more! View these vodcasts completely free of charge, and please share them with your colleagues!

Vodcast #1 - What is Information Literacy?

In this vodcast, Mike answers a series of questions about the basics of information literacy that he has collected from students and colleagues around the country.

Mike Eisenberg is dean emeritus and professor at the Information School of the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Mike's current work focuses on information, communications, and technology (ICT) literacy, information credibility, and information science education K-20. Mike is co-author of the "Big6 approach to information problem-solving" -- the most widely used information literacy program in the world.

For more author videos, please visit our YouTube channel: ABCCLIOLive.

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Addition posted on January 27, 2011:

Quick links to the remaining parts of the series


Part 2: http://abcclio.blogspot.com/2010/10/mike-eisenberg-on-how-to-implement.html
Part 3: http://abcclio.blogspot.com/2010/11/mike-eisenberg-vodcast-3.html
Part 4: http://abcclio.blogspot.com/2010/12/free-information-literacy-vodcast.html

New Author Videos Go Live!

AASL President-Elect, school librarian, and author, Carl A. Harvey provides easy ways to involve your principal in your school library. More tips like these can be found in his book, No School Library Left Behind.

Helen Adams, former Wisconsin school library media specialist and technology coordinator, gives helpful ways to overcome censorship in your library. Further reading on this topic can be found in her book, Ensuring Intellectual Freedom and Access to Information in the School Library Media Program.

Author and consultant Joseph Matthews provides three easy ways to create a more customer-focused library. More tips like these can be found in his new book, The Customer-Focused Library: Re-Inventing the Public Library From the Outside-In.

Bob Dugan, Dean of Libraries at University of West Florida and author, presents applicable tips on improving your library through metrics assessment. Dugan coauthored the book, Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives, with Peter Hernon, who can be found in this video conveying the importance and advantages of using metrics in your library.

Visit our YouTube channel ABCCLIOLive to view all of the latest author videos.

Author Guest Post: Stories on Board! with Dianne de Las Casas

I grew up playing board games.

I love how board games not only bring people together in a spirit of fun competition, but they also allow people to spend time together, sharing both chagrin and laughter as the game pieces move around the board.

One day, as I was rewriting a favorite folktale, the idea hit me. I could combine my favorite folktales and my love of board games into a fun, educational method that encompasses reading, writing, math and social studies. Stories on Board! was born. On a chilly, windy day in February at Pensacola Beach, Florida, I was inspired and furiously typed out the method on my laptop, right on the beach!

Meinard Cruz from Scholastic Book Fairs Philippines has been a longtime client and now, friend. He asked me to come to the Philippines and give workshops to teachers there. I was delighted when he agreed to let me debut Stories on Board! with the teachers in the Philippines. The workshop was a smash hit. The teachers loved the technique and are now using the method with their students.

4th graders playing "Don't Get Trapped"

Here's how it works: students in one class are given a favorite folktale. As a class, we break down the story, analyzing the characters, the perils, and the triumphs of the story using my signature “storymapping” technique. Then the students are shown examples of various types of board games and match the perils and triumphs of the story with the perils and triumphs of a board game. The students are put into groups of 4-6 people, working as a team to create a game board for the story they were assigned. There is a lot of spacial planning, simple math, collaboration, cooperation, and communication during the creation phase of the board game. When the games are completed, they play! I use this method with grades 3 and up. With the lower grades (PK-2), they play a game that I create from a story.

I used the technique in a two-week residency at one of my favorite schools in Louisiana – Bissonet Plaza Elementary. The students loved the fun they were having creating the board games. The teachers loved how much instruction and learning was involved. Game Day was done during P.E. time and the P.E. teachers enjoyed it so much they asked to keep several of the student-created games to use on rainy days.

Mouseopoly, created by a team of 5th graders

I am amazed by the creativity and teamwork I witness when students create their board games using the Stories on Board! method. They have a sense of pride because they create their own game. Surprisingly, many of the students I work with have never even played a board game! It is a pleasure to see students laugh and encourage each other during the games.

Since then, I have taught this method in professional development workshops and in schools across the country. Thank you to the countless teachers and librarians who understand the educational value of board games.

Stories are… fun and games! Let’s play!
--Dianne de Las Casas

Click here for more information on Stories on Board!: Creating Board Games from Favorite Tales (Libraries Unlimited, 5/2010).


Dianne de Las Casas is an author and award-winning storyteller who tours internationally, presenting programs, educator/librarian training, workshops, and artist residencies. She is the author of many books, including the Libraries Unlimited titles Scared Silly: 25 Tales to Tickle and Thrill; Tangram Tales: Story Theater Using the Ancient Chinese Puzzle; Handmade Tales: Stories to Make and Take; and The Story Biz Handbook: How To Manage Your Storytelling Career from the Desk to the Stage.