Learning To Lib

I have the joy of being a Teacher Librarian at a small, inner-city, K-7 elementary school. Some goals we had for this year were to teach students about information literacy through library skills in the physical library, our online catalogue, and our digital databases. Our current reference collection is not very large and we had plans to add to it. We lacked print copies of atlases, encyclopedias, proper dictionaries, etc. However, our whole planned changed a few weeks ago when we learned we would not be going back to school and instead we needed to equip students with resources at home. Now that student learning has been moved online I find myself in the same mindset as many other teachers—wishing I had somehow prepared my students for this. In particular, I wish I had taught more students specific digital citizenship lessons as well as how to access our online reference resources. The digital citizenship stuff I can teach as we build their learning through an online platform a...

  One of the highlights for me as an inquisitive historian has been finding out the history behind the different types of information-keeping we have learned about. The invention of databases, indexes, dictionaries, and reference works causes curiosity within me. I think, someone "way-back-when" thought that this information was so important (whether it be for daily life or to propel education) that they needed to create a system of keeping that information. That system needed to be governed by rules and follow a pattern. That system needed a name. It needed to be made public. The use of the system needed to be taught in schools.  In our classroom lecture this week we learned about the history of the dictionary specifically. To highlight one entry, one dictionary called Dr. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was developed in 1755. Dr. Johnson was quoted as saying, "t he chief intent [of creating this dictionary] is to preserve the purity and ascert...