The Lighthouse Diary Entry #16: Curation as a Library Service

We are in the in-between days. It is nearly the end of the academic year and preparation for closing out the year and graduation is in full speed. As this happens, we look to the coming summer and the inevitable in-service work that lies ahead. Curriculum alignment. Unit Planning. Attendance to professional development activities. 

Teachers have been planning on interdisciplinary projects that inspire collaboration. Librarians and libraries can lend support in this learning experience. I am sharing this email I sent out to teachers on curating and how it can support collaborative projects.

Curating sources of all media types and formats, people services and community resources is a library service we can do (and have been doing) with you. It is aimed at assisting teachers and helping students archive, record and manage information and meaningful content following citation formats and bibliographic standards (Ola, academic honesty!). Curating is best done collaboratively by teachers, the librarian and his/her staff, a class or a study group learning about specific units of study or projects. Curating can come in the form of a simple bibliographic lists of concepts in a unit of study, a LibGuide, a Pathfinder or a curating app that can be accessed and used via a mobile device. 

The tools for curation are many. Google Classroom has one as well as apps that can be merged or embedded in Google Drive. There are web apps like Scoopit, Pocket, Pearl, etc. World Book Online, which we have a subscription to, has Pathfinders. A class can create one and this is can be "shared" not just for a grade level, but to other classes in other schools here and abroad. We can also subscribe to LiGuides. Our new WebOPAC can also host and link curated sources and content. And, as your teacher librarian, I can also do it by request. We can sit together and plan a curating system that can function as an independent learning tool for your class.

It will get mixed reactions, I am sure. But, at the end of the day, I know I did my job.