Providing equitable access to library technology is not only good for service, it’s the right thing to do. But how can you decide how to select and implement cost-effective computer technology for users who need assistive help?

Implementing Cost-Effective Assistive Computer Technology: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians® by Jane Vincent contains step-by-step guidance supplemented by many forms and checklists to help you make these important decisions. The checklist and worksheet below below will help you get started with the planning process.

Excerpted from: Implementing Cost-Effective Assistive Computer Technology: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians®, pp. 41; 113. ©2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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If a local historical society donated an extensive photo collection to your library, and asked that you put the collection online, would you know where to start? Deciding what data to keep, in this case photographs, is often the first step. But how can you evaluate the collection and know which of the photos to digitize?

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Digital Curation: A How-To-Do-It Manual , by Ross Harvey, and it can help your library decide which data ought to be digitized.

Appraisal and Selection Policies
Appraisal and selection policies are developed to assist in answering the key questions of appraisal and selection (Do we want to keep the data? Do we need to keep the data? How long do we keep the data?) and to ensure that the right data are kept for valid reasons. Policies are important because they allow informed consistent decisions to be made that can be defended if challenged. An appraisal and selection policy for digital objects or data typically addresses five themes:

1. Future users (the designated community)
2. The feasibility of preservation (both economic and technical feasibility)
3. Legal and intellectual property rights
4. Whether data is mission-critical, vital to the success of a project or organization
5. Associated data (metadata or description and representation information)

The Data Audit Framework, developed in the United Kingdom by HATII at the University of Glasgow and the DCC, articulates these themes in its five principal classification questions (Jones, 2008). These help auditors decide whether data sets can be classed as vital, important, or minor:

• Are these data central to your research?
• Will the data be useful in the future?
• Are you the intellectual owner?
• Are they documented and in a sustainable form?
• Are they already being preserved elsewhere?

More specifically, an appraisal and selection policy for digital objects or
data assists data curators to answer questions such as these:

• Does the digital object or data fit into the archive’s selection policy?
• Who will or might use the digital object or data in the future? Is there a defined designated community?
• Is it economically feasible to keep the digital object or data?
• Can acceptable legal and intellectual property rights, to keep and reuse the digital object or data, be negotiated?
• Is there a legal requirement to keep the digital object or data for a certain period of time? Is there a requirement to make them accessible during this period?
• Does the digital object or data constitute the “vital records” of a project or organization and therefore need to be retained indefinitely?
• Is it both technically feasible and worthwhile in cost/benefit terms to preserve the digital object or data?
• Does sufficient documentation and metadata exist to explain the character and enable the discovery of the digital object or data?

Examination of appraisal and selection schemes provides further guidance. One example is the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (2005) appraisal guidelines. These guidelines provide a consistent framework for appraisal decision-making for social science data.

Eight questions are posed:

1. How significant are the data for research?
2. How significant is the source and context of the data, particularly in regard to scientific progress and society?
3. Is the information unique?
4. How usable are the data?
5. What is the timeframe covered by the information?
6. Are the data related to other data in the archives?
7. What are the cost considerations for long-term maintenance of the data?
8. What is the volume of data?

Although these criteria are intended for data archives, specifically social science archives, they are more widely applicable. Questions 5 (What is the timeframe covered by the information?) and 6 (Are the data related to other data in the archives?) address the relationship that the data set being appraised has with other data, as this may enhance its value: for example, the data set may be a continuation of a longitudinal study and valuable for this reason. Question 8 (What is the volume of data?) relates to the feasibility of preservation, as an archive may not be equipped to store and curate large quantities.

Exerpted from: Digital Curation: A How-To-Do-It Manual, pp. 138-139. ©2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Would you be able to find and purchase appropriate gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning young adult fiction if a community member donated money to help your library expand that collection? How would you know what was appropriate? Delivering great GLBT young adult fiction through your collection development plan means you will almost certainly need to justify their inclusion on the bookshelf. Fortunately, there are best practices to help you learn if there is a need for such a collection in the first place.

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Teens: A How-To-Do-It Manual written by Hillias J. Martin and James R. Murdock

Librarians are no strangers to fighting for equity of service for teens. Even today, many public libraries lack YA specialists and separate YA collections—this, despite the arrival of “echo boomers,” children of the baby boom generation who are themselves a demographic juggernaut. Inadequate service is especially unfortunate given that echo boomers are big readers, albeit at the same time as they text friends on their cell phones, download MP3s, and play video games. Publishers recognize this generation’s clout. So do booksellers, such as Borders and Barnes & Noble, which now prominently feature teen-only areas. But many libraries, given limited budgets, struggle to compete.

One way to calculate a rough estimate of how many queer teens live in your community is to visit the U.S. Census Bureau’s home page, www.census.gov, and find data tables for your town. You will need to drill down a bit, but eventually you should find a chart of age groups in your community. Add up the number of teenagers and multiply that result by 0.055—the product will be your rough estimate for how many queer teenagers live near you.

If you live in a small town and after doing this exercise discover that there are fewer than 100 queer teens out there, does that matter? No. The point of this exercise isn’t to compare numbers, or to value the needs of 100 teens less than the needs of 10,000 teens. The purpose is solely to show that there are queer teens in your town. For further proof, check out the yellow pages or go online to see if there are any queer community groups nearby. If there’s a PFLAG chapter or something similar, it clearly exists to fill a need. Also keep in mind that regardless of how many queer teens your calculations yield, straight teens also read LGBTQ books: to learn about their queer friends and family members, or simply to enjoy a well-written story.

-Excerpted from: Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Teens: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, pp. 65-66. ©2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Attracting teenagers to the library may seem like an impossible feat, but initiating engaging teen programs may just be the ticket to success. Whether you are the new director of young adult services or an experienced children’s and YA librarian looking for new ways to bring teens into the library, finding the right programs can help you build a stronger library for your young patrons.

Need some tips to get you started?

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Connecting Young Adults and Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual, Fourth Edition by Michele Gorman and Tricia Suellentrop.

“What Are the Keys to Developing Successful Teen Programs?

• Choose a popular topic. While trying to guess what is popular with teens is not easy, an LST should be able to determine which topics have broad popularity by asking, by looking at the collection, and by observing what teens are doing online and listening to, reading, and discussing with friends. Just as important are topics that enjoy deep rather than broad popularity. For example, the majority of teens are not interested in subjects like anime and cosplay, live action role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, or slam poetry, but teens who are interested in these topics are usually fanatics who look for any opportunity to pursue their interests.

• Partner with schools, school groups, and other youth-serving organizations. Whether the partner provides information or an audience, these programs will succeed in terms of attendance, and you may be able to capture the partner group’s audience for other library programs.

• Promote, don’t just publicize. The role of your library’s marketing and community relations department is to provide you with publicity materials; your job is to use those materials to promote your programs.

• Make connections to what is happening in the lives of teenagers. This means planning and carrying out programs that cover necessary topics like PSAT or SAT prep classes, funding for college, alternatives to college, etc. You can also make connections to the calendar, to the curriculum, and to the state education standards.

• Think “hands-on.” The best model for teen programs is not story time, in which you perform and the audience watches, but toddler time, in which you provide an interactive experience consistent with the developmental needs of the child. Too often LSTs use the children’s performer–audience model, and this doesn’t work as well for teens. Most teens want to do, not just watch.

• Youth involvement. Teens can be involved in so many ways, from coming up with ideas, to preparing promotional materials, to actually doing the program themselves. What matters is that teens have an opportunity to “own” a program. Once they feel vested in it, they are more likely to show up, participate, and bring their friends.

• Define success and tailor expectations based on the needs of your library and teens. A teen book discussion group with 50 teens in attendance might be a “success” on the stat sheet, but it won’t be for the teens who attended but didn’t get a chance to speak. While there are some exceptions, remember that in many teen programs there is an inverse relationship between the quantity of attendees and the quality of the experience. At the same time, you must define your expectations. To say, “Well, the three teens who were here enjoyed it” works for a book discussion group or a hands-on craft activity because these kinds of interactive programs work well with small groups. To say this for a large-scale gaming tournament or a Battle of the Bands doesn’t work because limited-interaction programs intended for large groups need an audience to be successful. You need to be honest with yourself, but you also need to be honest with your superiors to help them understand that teen programming is not as simple as children’s programs. It is not just a matter of booking a performer, putting out some flyers, and waiting for the parents to bring the kids. Moreover, while there is nothing wrong with enjoyment being the only “outcome” of a children’s program featuring a clown, teens need more than that. If you are to focus on the outcomes for teens, you must stop focusing so strongly on the output for the library.”

-Excerpted from: Connecting Young Adults and Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual, Fourth Edition, pp. 227-228. ©2009 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Learn more about this How-To-Do-It Manual ® here.

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When your students or younger patrons browse the Web, they are bombarded with information from all kinds of sources—but can they tell what is fact and what is fiction? Teaching them how to find trustworthy information on their own is an essential life skill as well as a research skill. For that, youth need guidance to learn how to find reliable sources of information when navigating the Web.

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from The New iSearch, You Search,We All Learn to Research: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Teaching Research Using Web 2.0 Tools and Digital Resources written by Donna Duncan, Laura Lockhart, and Lisa Ham.

Evaluating Websites

The major portion of a student’s research in today’s world will often be on the Internet. The Web is powerful and has a wealth of information for students to access and use. Unfortunately, as Alan November writes, “the Internet is a place where you can find ‘proof ’ of essentially any belief system that you can imagine and for too many students, ‘if it’s on the Internet, then it is true’” (November Learning, 2009). In his article, “Teaching Zack to Think,” November tells a true story about a 14-year-old student who, as a result of using information he found on the Internet, came to the conclusion that the Holocaust never happened. November discusses how students can use the web itself to evaluate their sources by determining the purpose, author, and meta-web information of the site found (November Learning, 2009). Knowing how to use the Internet is an indispensable twenty-first-century skill. Teachers and librarians can work together to teach lessons on its use. Evaluating websites is the focus of the following lesson. It may be taught by the teacher or librarian earlier in the year or at the time of the iSearch Project.

 

Lesson 12: Evaluating Websites

 

Curriculum Standards

• American Association of School Librarians (AASL, 2007)—Standards for the 21st-Century Learner: Standard 1. Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge.

1.1.5. Evaluate information found in selected sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context.

1.1.8. Demonstrate mastery of technology tools for accessing information and pursuing inquiry.

1.3.5. Use information technology responsibly.

• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2007)—NETS for Students 2007:

5. Digital Citizenship

a. Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.

Lesson Objective Students will have the opportunity to evaluate websites for their authenticity.

Materials Needed

• Teacher/librarian computer and projector device

• Student computers

• “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation” (see Figure 5.2).

• Kid-Friendly Search Engines (see Figure 5.3). [Not available as part of this post]

Anticipatory Set

• Talk with the students about using the Internet for their research. Most students will have had prior experience searching the web. This is a good time to remind the more experienced users of the basics and an opportunity to introduce the inexperienced younger students to search strategies. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2011) offers a helpful tutorial, “Using the Web,” divided by grade level: grades 1–2, grades 3–5 and grades 6–8. “Searching for Web Sites” for grades 3–5 and “Evaluating Web Sites” for grades 6–8 are especially valuable for this lesson.

• A useful video for older students is the Common Craft (2011) video Web Search Strategies in Plain English.

• Use information from ALA’s “Great Web Sites for Kids Selection Criteria” to lead the class in a discussion of what makes a website useful (ALA, 2010) .

• Next, discuss with the students the “Who, What, When, Where, and Why” of website evaluation. Use Kathy Schrock’s “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation” (see Figure 5.2).

 

Click for larger image

 

Guided Practice

• Choose a “hoax site” and have students work in pairs using “The Five W’s” to determine if the website is useful or not. A source for hoax sites is: “Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators: Critical Evaluation Information” (Schrock, 2011c).

• Students may work at computers or with print copies of “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation” and the hoax sitewebpage.

• Have students share with the class their findings regarding the hoax sites.

Independent Practice

• Have students do searches for a class question (i.e., What are fun things to do at Lake Tahoe?) using one of the search engines in Figure 5.3 and “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation.”

• Students may work again at computers or with print copies of “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation” to determine the helpfulness of the Internet site.

• Have students share their findings with a partner.

• Another option is to use Kathy Schrock’s forms “Critical Evaluation of a Web Site: Elementary School Level” or “Critical Evaluation of a Web Site: Middle School Level” (Schrock,2011a,b; see also Schrock, 2002).

Closure Discuss with students the difference between a site that is not helpful and a useful site. Ask them how “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation” helped them determine the difference.

Formative Assessment Check students’ knowledge of “The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation” for understanding of the web assessment process.

-Excerpted from: The New iSearch, You Search, We All Learn to Research: A How-To-Do-It Manual® for Teaching Research Using Web 2.0 Tools and Digital Resources, pp. 69-73. ©2011 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the United States. It is important to plan for diverse collections and services in our academic and public libraries when you combine a large and growing Latino population with the very high population growth of this group. Library professionals who are prepared to serve ethnically diverse populations will be better positioned to be effective in light of the dramatic impact on libraries and other service agencies providing services to Latinos.

With that in mind, today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Serving Latino Communities: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Second Edition written by Camila A. Alire and Jacqueline Ayala:

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“Basic services are the place to start when planning for your Latino community. We suggest the following steps to help you get started:

Identify existing basic services.

You and your staff are in the best position to evaluate and identify the basic programs and services that are already available for Latino residents to use. By basic services, we mean those services that can be provided at no extra cost because they are already covered in your current budget. For example, many services such as circulation, general reference, readers’ advisory, meeting rooms; or programming for different audiences such as children, teens, and adults are available to those Latinos who are either monolingual in English or bilingual.

Modify those basic services.

After you have identified those existing basic services and programs, you need to modify them to ensure that Latino residents in your community can benefit from them. Let’s take children’s programming for example. If you are planning children’s programming for the month of April, you may want to include activities for all children (non-Latino and Latino) around El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros which is traditionally celebrated on April 30. Activities could include a story hour around a children’s book with multiethnic characters and performance by a children’s dance troupe that would depict the Latino subgroup or subgroups in your community.

Conduct targeted programming.

Programming around holidays is also a good way to attract Latinos of any age. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving are some of the major holidays and a popular celebration in Latin America is “El Día de las Madres” (Mother’s Day), which in Mexico is celebrated every May 10th. The tradition of honoring mothers, grandmothers, and godmothers during “Día de las Madres” can provide a good theme for Latino programming incorporating crafts, literature and oral tradition or storytelling.

Implement signage in Spanish.

If your library really wants the Latino community to feel welcome, there is no better way to do that than with Spanish signage in the library. Signage is a very basic service that can be done at minimal cost. With bilingual signage, you tell Latinos that you recognize and accept their cultural differences and want to serve them and that they are welcome in your library. Figure 5–1 on page xx and xx provides a Spanish translation for the Dewey Decimal Classification System signage.

Export library card signup.

Another basic service for Latinos that takes little, if any, additional funds is the library card application process. You can choose to design one bilingual form or two separate forms—one in English and one in Spanish. Whichever you choose, merely providing the application in both languages leaves a favorable impression in the community (See image below of Beaufort County (South Carolina) Library’s bilingual card application form). The process for signing up Latinos does not have to be in the library.  In the County of Arlington, VA there was a library card sign-up in conjunction with a bilingual Reading Readiness program held at Hecht’s (now part of Macy’s) Department Store. Library card signups are held at the cultural celebrations throughout the County and annually at the Arlington County Fair. (T. Bissessar personal communication, October 28, 2006) Export your library card sign-up with volunteers and a table set up at the grocery store, schools, post office, outside social services offices, after church, or at Latino festivals.

(Click on the image to enlarge.)

Conduct open houses and tours.

You can work with a partner in the Latino community to organize another no-cost or low-cost service which is library open houses and tours designed specifically for the community. If possible, distribute library card applications in advance and with the help of your partnering organization have them completed and returned to you in time to have processed the cards for distribution at the event. These programs should be offered at times when the whole Latino family is available. Be creative to keep the costs down. We suggest you get a local food business to donate some food for coffee hour or an informal reception after the tours.

Consider hiring a translator.

An intermediary translator could work in the library for three hours once a week (for example, Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m.). If you can find the funds, pay a bilingual resident to serve as an intermediary translator (between Spanish-speaking user and English-speaking library staff). Even at a $10 hourly rate, that is only $1,560 per year. If that is still impossible, try to get some bilingual community residents to volunteer several hours a week. Teens could serve in this capacity and can either work on behalf of your Library’s Teen Advisory Group (or TAG) or perform the hours of volunteer work in order to satisfy requirements toward graduation from high school. We suggest that you set a time and day to offer bilingual services. For example, every Tuesday and Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. you could offer bilingual services. Basically, the volunteers would be able to translate wherever needed in the library during those hours.”

-Excerpted from: Serving Latino Communities: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Second Edition, pp. 82-89. ©2007 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery.

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