tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061870849031468581.post2189410379972671893..comments2024-03-27T05:00:00.090-04:00Comments on Letters to a Young Librarian: Values and Value, by Nicholas SchillerJessica Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00282500023825318766noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061870849031468581.post-55051957853126063382014-08-29T13:34:22.491-04:002014-08-29T13:34:22.491-04:00Thanks for these great thoughts Rick.
As I look a...Thanks for these great thoughts Rick.<br /><br />As I look at this, I keep making a comparison between how we look at program assessment now and how we looked at social networks / web 2.0 8 years ago. I was a technological optimist at that time and all I could see about the technology was the possibility for things like DPLA, Europeana, and DBpedia. Critics could only envision Facebook's advertising-driven panopticon and Amazon's monopsony. We were both right and we were both wrong.<br /><br />Now, with assessment, I can see the possibilities, but the dangers seem much more prominent to me. I'm glad I have "assessment optimists" to work with who can point out the possibilities that I'm too pessimistic to see.nicholashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07679401295330820469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061870849031468581.post-37759981054209510612014-08-28T13:25:33.006-04:002014-08-28T13:25:33.006-04:00Nicholas -- Thanks for sharing your reflection and...Nicholas -- Thanks for sharing your reflection and words about the intersection of library values, assessment, culture, and tenure.<br /><br />I must admit, I am more excited about libraries than I have been in a long time and that is because of assessment. I had been extremely cynical as an instruction librarian but found assessment to be a breath of fresh thinking about libraries. As a former assessment librarian, I am sympathetic to your observation of potential hidden agendas and neoliberalism within education. At the same time, having been behind the assessment curtain -- I can say that in many places I have encountered no agenda other than "doing" assessment -- meaning that nobody knew how to exactly define what values they wanted assessed. . In many cases, it was simply - we need to be doing assessment -- and then making it up as they go along. I think that is the mis-step in libraries is that libraries haven't done a stellar job of defining the END to which we are assessing so they cram other measures (retention, GPA) in as proxies. This is where reflection probably comes in -- we all get caught up in doing librarianship (instruction, reference, checking out books) and do little reflecting on why this is important to ourselves and others Yet people have written about assessing libraries for contributing to "goodness" and providing measures (I'll try to find that citation) but I have yet to see this taken up. From my perspective libraries are too wishy-washy about owning what a library is and why it is important and letting others decide often by default why libraries exist. Once we decide why libraries are important then we can develop measures to support our ascertains. <br /><br />All that said, my experience in library assessment has really inspired me as I believe libraries impart a huge impact and have a real potential to do good. With a shift in our thinking, with some help from assessment and reflection, libraries have the wherewithal to finally define (not redefine but define) our role in our communities.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03365250716343854950noreply@blogger.com