[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks for the idea for my topic. Yes, I was sure you didn’t mean popular culture and high culture were the same thing. I thought that making an argument against trying to distinguish culture with those labels would be useful for making an argument for developing collections inclusive of diverse resources. It was a sentiment I had thought about and I enjoyed the chance to do some reflection and research about it. 🙂

That’s quote is so good, Robynne! I totally think librarians can shape culture and improve things for the better. I am with you, it’s the kind of librarian I want to be too.

[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks for your service review Kate! When I started reading I thought “Yeah, whatever, like they managed to make a library cool for teens…” but then I went to the site and it’s so brilliant. I think my skepticism came from a place of thinking how savvy teens are at sussing out constructed coolness created by adults. But this site literally has things teens would want and use. As soon as I saw the ad with Snoopy on it saying “What’s cooler than being cool? Having a library card!” I knew it was a place run by librarians with a sense of humour and who really thought about their users.

When it is clearly possible that increasing the teenage audience in libraries is possible, I wonder why libraries don’t focus on it more. Do you have any thoughts on why libraries don’t focus more on teenagers?

[Leena Riethmuller]

It’s good to know there is a library out there with a teen advisory board –  I was thinking while reading Kate’s review how good it would be for teens to see other teens using the library and informing the library of what they need to cater for teens. 😀

[Leena Riethmuller]

I like your idea for labels Stacey. I think it would be more helpful and inclusive to use more descriptive terms than hierarchical terms… like critical, entertaining, personal etc. I agree that there needs to be criticality about art, and about everything!

[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks Katherine. I agree that there should be more non-fiction in public libraries. It gives the sense that non-fiction texts are reserved for academic environments and not for the general public. Very sad! And even sadder when you want access to resources that aren’t available to the general public. I have a lot of friends who lament losing their access to university libraries. And YES, good point, maybe non-users aren’t using public libraries because they don’t offer the resources the users want…?

[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks Ruth. Yes, I agree that i is difficult to measure skills and whether they are being applied effectively. I like the idea that it is a university’s responsibility to ensure this. It means that the pressure is taken off academic staff and librarians to assert their positions, and instead the university could consult them in developing a workable system. 🙂

[Leena Riethmuller]

Hi Caitlin, thanks for responding to my post!

In answer to your first question, about balancing HDR support and collections management and support of undergraduate students: I think that solutions will vary depending on the individual library and its needs. So, I don’t think there is any one solution but that it is important to be mindful that needs must be periodically assessed so that aspects of the organisational structure can be changed accordingly. I think this is true for most organisational constructs. I don’t have any experience working in this particular context, but I have experienced the student and tutor side of things so I have some awareness of how different groups within the university may be invested differently in research.

I think opening parts of the library to the general public would be really useful. Having been in and then out of the university system, there were times when I was unable to access information I needed and I realised the benefits of university. I can predict that some people would prefer to keep collections private in order to ensure that paying clients and staff have priority access to all library facilities. Personally,  I would gladly welcome non-students to access university collections (especially content available online) because access to information in fundamental to bridging gaps in education.

[Leena Riethmuller]

Hi Bronwyn, thanks for your post! I think it is super important for gallery spaces to provide public programs that supplement the current exhibition. It allows for different avenues of audience engagement.
I too found it interesting that you linked the talk with SLQ’s goals and strategies. I have long wondered about the way that the exhibition space at SLQ is run, given that SLQ’s primary focus is being a library. I wonder how much the library’s goals and strategies influence the curation of the exhibition program. They do host a lot of work that covers local and historical topics which I think fits with the position and responsibility that public libraries have within the broader community.

[Leena Riethmuller]

Hi Rae, thanks for drawing attention to the flaws in the current plans for the NBN. I have recently had a few chats with varying people about the personal experiences with accessing technology, and your post pretty much sums it up.
The thing that concerns me about the idea of just improving the quality of technology, is that all it does is increase the divide and does nothing to fix it. It doesn’t make it more affordable, it doesn’t (necessarily) put it in more locations, it doesn’t make it easier to use or more versatile for specific user capabilities.
I think it’s a case of decision makers looking no further than their back yard when they are making decisions that effects everybody – even those who choose not to use digital technologies are implicated in it.
I think that providing access (in whatever way that is for the user) through public libraries can be really helpful for decreasing the divide. I am excited that you have taken an interest in this area and I look forward to chatting with you about your research next year.

[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks Shannon. I agree that calling creativity a phenomenon makes it seems like some ungraspable thing. I like your idea of thinking of it as a talent because some people are naturally inclined to be good at certain types of things, but they still need to  practice and develop their skills. And just because you’re not naturally good at something doesn’t mean you can’t learn to be good at it! 🙂

[Leena Riethmuller]

An additional discussion topic I was thinking of looking at was definitions of ‘creativity’. Wikipedia provides a lot of information on it, and I was particularly interested in the historical discussion on the origins of the word.

[Leena Riethmuller]

Ruth, I love the idea that makerspaces could be places that support female artists. In fact, there could be programs directed specifically at doing this, that could team up with members of the arts community to run such things. This was really something I had not thought of but makes perfect sense. 🙂
I sometimes feel like art is a bit left out of the maker movement, because not all artists are crafters or tinkerers… but I believe it is possible that space can be created for them to be there.

[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks Ruth. I agree that there are frameworks within the educations system that don’t work to provide an enriching learning environment. I don’t feel like I know enough to comment properly. I can only really speak from my experience, so I can say that for the most part my experience of education was about outcomes rather than learning and skills building. Such a shame!

[Leena Riethmuller]

Thanks Will. Something I noticed last semester in my literature review is that a lot of study on teaching and learning has been done in different fields (primarily academic fields)… and Information Science is just one of those fields. I think that is part of the reason why there are so many labels for the same or similar things. Also, a lot of this research is relatively new, so concepts that exist under different labels in different fields are yet to be brought together. I find this is a really compelling time to be studying Information Science. There is so much still to explore!

[Leena Riethmuller]

Hi Will,
Thanks for your summary of the Twitter chat. I enjoyed it at the time and it was nice to read over your comments to solidify in my mind all the different ideas we covered.

In answer to your question: I think giving something a label is useful in order to get a face-value idea of what it might be, but it’s necessary for people to know that a label is only a label and that we need to go deeper in order to understand the differences and complexities of context.  Because of this, I think it is important to teach people how to identify different contexts and become literate about those contexts by themselves. It’s a big ask, and I don’t really know where to start. I am excited to do more reading about it. When considering the digital divide, I don’t think it is realistic to expect people to learn for themselves, at least when they are still learning the basics of technology. I think in order to get people to feel confident enough to learn on their own, we need to do a lot of facilitation. In my week 7 blog post I write a bit about Lifelong Learning. It may interest you to have a read.

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