Pardon the Interruption

Here’s a rough draft of the Pecha Kucha presentation I’m doing at LOEX-W next week.  Two days till Vegas, baby!

Re-thinking my ‘message’

When I got the idea for my Suvivor Library project, lots of folks looked at me with raised eyebrows.  “You’re going to have college students play a game of Survivor in the library computer lab? That will never work.”  Well, truthfully the idea wasn’t fully developed, not even enough for me to describe it.  But it had worked with 7th graders…Surviving Grammar Island was a hit with them.  It was one of my most successful units!  And, as I developed the idea more, added ‘challenges’ to the blog and actually had students completing the challenges in a loosely structured format in a couple of instruction sessions, it seemed to be working.  My LOEX proposal was accepted, and even though I didn’t get IRB approval until after most of my spring instruction sessions were over, I still felt like I had a good idea.

There were a few problems though:

1.  I knew that by using Survivor Library, I could be violating copyright by using the familiar show trademark.  Even though I attempted to get permission from CBS, I never received it, and I didn’t think it was a good idea for a librarian to proceed with something that might be an illegal use of a trademarked phrase.

2.  I couldn’t think of appropriate prizes or a way to frame something valuable enough for the winning team…it seemed, and it was, superficial.

3. I didn’t like the negative connotation of the word SURVIVOR, as if the library was something dangerous that one needed to somehow get through unscathed.  Perhaps that is true for some of us some of the time, but it just didn’t seem good for marketing the library’s resources and services.

See my first post for more on this discussion.

Project Modified

This is a work in progress.  Last year I created a blog on Blogger called Survivor Library.  I tried to get permission from CBS to use the title, which is too close to their popular TV show title for me to feel comfortable.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get anyone to acknowledge my request, and quite frankly, soon realized that I wanted this project to go in a different direction. 

The show is certainly not as popular as it was when I used it in my 7th grade English classroom to trick kids into learning grammar by teaching one another.  Also, in a 50 minute one-shot, it’s really hard to carry through with the whole “team up and complete these challenges together” thing.  Plus, what on earth do I use for prizes?  Finally, I had to ask myself:  What kind of connotation do I bring up when I talk about SURVIVING the library?  Like it’s some big scary jungle that one must figure out how to…well, survive in. 

Ok, so maybe it is kind of like a big scary jungle, full of mind-boggling jargon, scary shelves stacked high with books organized HOW?, and databases screaming NO RESULTS FOUND when one types a perfectly logical phrase into their search boxes.  To some, libraries can seem overwhelming, confusing and scary.  To many, using the library for research seems impossible, sort of like surviving 30 days on an unfriendly island where all are out to get you.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Hopefully, this blog, its associated wiki, “Surviving the Library,” and other information literacy initiatives being developed by NSU Librarians and teaching faculty will help to make library research not only ‘mission possible,’ but ‘mission enjoyable!’