Library Media Format Tree

Looking through my digital photos, I stumbled on this “media format tree” I created at my beloved school library where I served as librarian for 25 years. The tree branch mounted on the ceiling was from the peach tree in my yard, which provided me with many memories (and much philosophical meaning). But that’s a different story.

As media formats rapidly evolved over my career from primarily print in 1990 to primarily digital in 2015, I witnessed personally the close of the Gutenberg Parenthesis and it had a huge influence on my profession and the world. I worked during the age when book was king of the information hierarchy and I have done many presentations on the toppling of that hierarchy. Print formats are “fixed” and they do not change when you return to them again and again; yet digital content is “fluid” and seems to constantly evolve leading to sense of being washed out to sea as the next wave comes your way.

On my media tree, you may see newsprint, microfiche, CD’s and DVD’s, filmstrips, catalog cards, and floppy disks. Many of these formats are now rarely (or never) used and they remind me of the importance of archival. If we do not migrate formats they often become unusable as evidenced by the Museum of Obsolete Media.

You may also see buckets of crayons and writing materials on the library tables because I asked students to bring journals with them. Connecting literature to our lives with writing activities was a joy! (Then the digital revolution put iPads into the hands of the children and the halls and cafeteria became silent as they stared into them.) On the far right of this picture there is a tip of the hat glimpse at the fish bowl where Dewey the fish (actually Dewey 1.1, Dewey 1.2 and many more over the many years!) swam happily illustrating that a library is a living organism.

Around 2008, early one morning, I turned on all the lights as I always did- since I loved bringing the library to life before the teachers and students began to arrive- and I had this premonition. It was a sense that the space would be changing. It was such a strong feeling that, looking back, I could imagine the floor was shaking! What will happen to this space? I thought. I jumped ahead as an early adopter of the metaverse because I wanted to explore best practices before the children arrived. And they did. They are greatly in need of some metaphorical boats to help navigate the constant sea of information chaos.

Virtual Visits with Authors & Illustrators in the School Library

Digital participatory culture provides us with opportunities to collaborate and communicate across the globe. For the past four years, I have been Skyping authors in my school library with 4th grade students. I am amazed at the willingness of authors to share their time and talent with my students.

This year, I asked both the author and illustrator of Giants Beware to virtually visit with my students. The author, Jorge Aguirre, and the illustrator, Rafael Rosado, were willing to share the process of collaborating on their graphic novel which has been nominated for the Texas Bluebonnet Award (a state award for books chosen by students).

Students asked interesting questions while Rosado created a live graphic picture on his iPad , signed and dated it, then emailed it to me immediately after the session. We decided to use Google Hangouts this year because we wanted all three of us to share live video (which is free and easy on Google Hangouts). My school library is in Texas, Aguirre lives in New Jersey, and Rosado lives in Ohio.  A LIVE virtual visit across the U.S. was exciting for the students and a great example of global participatory digital culture.