Lesson 3: Search Engines and Meta Data

"Consider how a mastery of search engine anatomy would help with the role of the teacher librarian in developing information literacy with colleagues and students."

Wow, I learned a great deal by fishing around in the help areas of Google, Yahoo and DMOZ. Even the vocabulary stunned me. Today's readings also made me wish I had invested in Google many years ago, as Google was one of the first search engines to use web crawlers. How Search Engines Work gives a clear overview for non-tech-savy folk.

DMOZ, which I had never heard of before,  is a non-profit, volunteer organization which lists websites. Web page creators can submit their page and a volunteer approves the page and lists it. While this seems rather 1990's (!) according to Web Workshop a listing with DMOZ can help improve ranking and relevancy as Google's crawlers use DMOZ listings to create their own listings. Yahoo has a similar process, but also suggests to web page creators that they focus on key user search terms in titles of pages, to increase the chances of a 1-10 ranking.

What is the importance of relevancy and ranking... money. If people are creating webpages, they want to get hits to their site. Hits, in many cases, are monetized nowadays, so income can be generated through advertising; additionally, income can be generated through sales and services. According to many sources read today (see links) readers tend to stay with in hits 1-10, so the closer your pages comes to the top, the higher the chance someone will read it.

Meta data is an interesting topic, summarized simply as the tags one includes in the html code on your web page. According to Monash, though, "meta tags are less useful than they were a few years ago, largely because of the high rate of spamdexing". Never the less, a librarians understanding of metatagging is important as recognizing that key word searching will provide a greater level of relevancy that general searches. Demonstrating to students and staff the back pages of websites and showing the html code and metatags would help them to see how thinking out search terms prior to using a search engine, would save time and energy and result in more relevant websites appearing in the index.

I have noticed recently, that students tend to search in the http:// section of a webpage, and aren't using Google as much. They expect that their topic will appear as a website. Interestingly, very often they do hit with quick success.

Monash has a great set of key words to help create a Boolean search, so this page is worth keeping to show students how to use AND OR NOT in their searches to limit pages. For example, the site uses

Recommended Search Engines

Meta-Data Basics

"nirvana AND Buddhism, NOT Cobain. " as a way to make sure that a student's search does not come up with a set of sites irrelevant to a project on Buddhism.

Lesson Two

I found the information in this lesson diverse. From sites packed full of book review, to how to pick a good book for your library, then onto the future of libraries. Perhaps the intention of this lesson was to be a general overview to set the stage for the rest of the course. In particular, I found the following resources worthy of book marking for future reference:

Book and Audio Visual Selection Guide from Portage La Prairie School Division will be a good source of information for many library courses and in my future as librarian giving me a solid foundation from which to justify choices

Flash DDS tour will be useful when explaining/reviewing with grade 8's and older how to use the library.

Places to find book reviews for teachers is a great website of a variety of sources from which to glean reviews of the newest, latest, and best books for all ages.

Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science is another worthy keeper, as there are many terms which I still wonder about. I still laugh that on my first day as Librarian I called the CUPE help desk to ask what a MARC record was! She must have had a chuckle

A larger portion of this lesson contained some pertinent thoughts on Access, both physical and intellectual. Some considerations I have had are as follows:

Privacy: posting overdue lists or emailing parents overdue items? To what extent does publishing these types of lists invade students privacy. Physical access to the collection, in many schools has been sorely limited. My daughter only has access to her school library on Tuesdays during her book exchange time. At my school, I open the library at 8am and usually stays till 330 and in exchange I do not do bus duty. I leave the library unlocked when I am not there in my teaching blocks and at lunch, because I view it as a student space, not just my space. We do not have a security system, but ironically last year my library lost fewer books than some in the district, which have security, and more librarian/clerk presence.

Another wonder I have is about a student's right to information: i.e. is a student allowed to check out a book on gay marriage when parents disagree? I wonder if there are policies to guide these types of issues.

Our English department purchased a number of DVD's for us to use to supplement our programs. These DVDs are stored and catalogued in the library. I wonder if student should be allowed to access such audio-visuals, as they are in the public library system?

Flip this Library summarizes much of my thinking over the past year and a half. The changes we are seeing in how students access information and learn are becoming more profound. The draw of online courses is huge. At one of our high schools more than 70% of students are taking Planning 10 through SIDES (South Island Distance Education School), which is a financial loss to the district, many have also discovered the online PE loophole as well. More and more students are taking the opportunity to pick up electives and learn at their own pace. I really wonder where school will be in the future.

The lesson readings state: "Digital resources and the Internet are now acceptable and powerful components of our school library collections." It seems that while a library website used to be a bonus, the icing on the cake, in fact now the website needs to be a portal to digital resources. It seems a shame that librarians all over the province have to create their own websites though, as much is being replicated.  Schools and technology coordinators will have to look at "providing for anytime anywhere learning" such as digital access to resources. When I questioned the way we would be housing digital books, I was snickered at, and the comment was given that we "never will" (this was from the district technology guy). I wonder how we will store digital resources, and I wonder if we will develop closer ties to the public library system and teach students how to find digital books via that portal.

In conclusion, the statement "Better organization can also mean that we can spend more time on the creative aspects of our role" (course work) summarizes the importance of understanding how the system is organized. If we are easily able to find information, then we are better able to use it. The library system is one way to make sense of the world, and it is a way that has worked well. It will be interesting to see how the DDS survives in a digital world where we are used to information popping up in a new window vs. having to physically find it.

Lesson One: Introduction

·  Alice Kedves

·  Chemainus Secondary 8-12, 382 students.

·  I started teaching in 1991, but took seven years off for maternity leave with my two kids who are now ten and seven (Sarah and Luke).

·  Moved into the library in September 2009 when the librarian retired. I have three out of seven blocks library and teach four blocks senior English.

·  I have completed seven courses, and have the final three this term.

·  I enjoy spending other people's money on books, as I have a weakness for buying books. I enjoy helping kids find books they love, and relish having to buy second copies of books because they are being taken out and I have so many requests for books. I love my group of library groupies who meet me at the door every morning aching to get into the library and who bemoaned my absence last week.

·  In the library, I complete all technical services, although any serious issues require a call to the principal or the tech service guy. I upload my data from the district website, but have a phone by a computer station where I sit and the CUPE help desk will remotely work on my data base if need be.

·  I upload the MARC records which are created by the CUPE staff at the DRC. They process the books and attach the bar codes. I stamp them with my school stamp and then shelve them as they come in. I have noticed that the previous librarians wrote some kinds of codes inside the books, but since I have no idea why (perhaps I'll learn) I have not continued this practice.

·  We use L4U. I just purchased the newest version so I can add book covers, students can add book reviews, etc. The district uses L4U, but I am the only school with the updated version. (Thanks to my principal.) 

·  The DRC (District Resource Center) staff do my book processing. The head secretary in our school office does my P.O.s and ordering. I give her catalogues with my requests highlighted.

·  I would like to learn more about the DDS as I am only now getting to know certain areas with confidence. I guess I didn't learn it at school, but I have noticed that during my grade 8 orientation students were very familiar with it.

·  I am taking three courses this term, all core courses, so I feel that my skills as a librarian will gain a stronger foundation. I might also be a bit overwhelmed!!

 Reflection on readings:  

As I read the CASL Competencies for Teacher-Librarians I couldn't help but make the connection with relationships. It seems more and more the idea of relationship as primary comes up in my life. It is through the development of relationships with other teachers/staff and students that we can become most effective in our roles as librarian. One of the most difficult areas for me, in this list, is the standard "Develops with teachers a coordinated approach to information literacy." In my school information technology seems to be held by one teacher, and he sees it as his job and his job alone. All other teachers are relegated to old labs that do not run a number of the neater features. I would like to work on this area in the upcoming years, to see how we can approach these 21 Century skills as a team, and in this way students can make connections between courses and content.

The comment in the course introduction, "When organizing resources, our objectives should be to do so in such a way that this will help all school library users meet the information literacy goals of the school library program and of their school.", highlights the weakness I noted above. Information literacy goals need to be school wide and recognized by the entire staff, rather than seen as the role of one teacher or program.

The question is posed "Can we have a strong library program and be poorly organized?" I would say no. When I took over the library, 2000 books had been deleted from the database. They were on the shelves, but not in the database. How could the previous librarian have missed this? Perhaps this problem is why she retired early? I am still correcting error in the database after 18 months, and the tidier the database is, the easier it is for students and teachers to find materials in the library. I didn't realize how detail oriented a librarian needs to be, and also a bit of a perfectionist on top!

When I took over the library, I was shocked to discover that almost all staff had no idea how to search the library database and most students did not know you can search the database to find books. I found students wandering the stacks looking for books by scanning titles. I am a long way off all students knowing how and where to find books, but I do feel I am making progress.

Yet another blog... education in the year 2011!