Category: Publications News

Greetings all. There was a great deal of activity around my new book, a librarian-oriented follow-up to the Atlas of New Librarianship, at the beginning of the year. Well, it is 4 months later and there has been a lot of progress. Of course most of that progress is between me and my word processor, so I thought it would be useful to bring folks up to speed.

The first update is that the working title of the book has changed. The Radical’s Guide to New Librarianship is now The New Librarianship Field Guide. Folks made it very clear in my call for input they were looking for a book that was more linear, filled with more actionable examples, and was at it’s core about implementation. So the Field Guide now includes lots of examples, discussion questions, and field observations on implementing and teaching these ideas. To be clear I still talk about librarians as radical positive change agents.

I’m changing the pages on my site to reflect the new working title over the next few days. All the “Radical Conversations” will remain.

The other reason for the change is that Field Guide is being designed for use on the go. Not only will it be a highly portable paperback, but it will be available from the get go as an ebook. So the hope is that you can use it on the front lines with librarians and other library staff.

The big update is that the first really rough draft is now out for comments from the New Librarianship Collaborative (Wendy Newman, Kim Silk, and Lauren Britton). I’m including the current table of contents below and I need your help.

You’ll see that Chapter 19 is titled “FAQs (Frequently Argued Questions).” I’m looking for your questions or the issues that pop up when you are trying to implement the community-centric, community as collection idea. I can’t promise to include them all, but I would like to provide responses to as many as possible. You’ll see a few examples already under that chapter (and a special thanks to Lane Wilkinson for letting me use his blog post to get the ball rolling).

So email me, or use the comments below.

Here’s the current Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1: Librarianship Full Stop
  • The New Language of Librarianship
    • “Radical”
    • “New Librarianship”
    • “Member”
  • Acknowledging the Atlas in the Room
  • Structure of the Guide

Librarians

• Chapter 2: They Named the Building After Us
• Chapter 3: The Mission of Librarians
  • A Very Brief History of Libraries
  • A Two Part Mission
  • Your Mission is Not Unique
  • Stand for Something or Fall for Everything
• Chapter 4: Knowledge Creation
  • Information is a Lie
  • Knowledge, Knowing, and Pragmatism
  • Recorded Knowledge is a Lie Too
  • So What is Knowledge?
  • 1+1=Climate Change?!
  • I’ll Have the Dialect Theory with a Side of Constructivism Please
    • Conversants
      • Trust Me, I’m a Librarian
    • Language
    • Agreements
    • Memory
  • The Practicalities of Being in the Conversation Business
• Chapter 5: Facilitation
  • Access
  • Knowledge
  • Environment
  • Motivation
  • All Together Now
• Chapter 6: Participatory Systems
  • Pressure for participation
    • The Pressure to Converse
    • The Pressure for Change
    • The Pressure for Social Interaction
    • The Pressure of Limited Resource
    • The Pressure at the Boundaries
  • What Should Be
    • Go to the Conversation
    • Focus on Aspirations not Problems
• Chapter 7: Improve Society
  • Service
  • Learning
  • Openness
  • Intellectual Freedom and Safety
  • Intellectual Honesty
  • So What is a Librarian?
• Chapter 8: Librarians
  • The Salzburg Curriculum
    • Transformative Social Engagement
    • Technology
    • Asset Management
    • Cultural Skills
    • Knowledge, Learning, and Innovation
    • Management for Participation
      • Advocacy and Librarianship by Wendy Newman
      • Assessment
• Chapter 9: Pragmatic Utopians

Libraries

• Chapter 10: What is a Library
  • A Library is a Funded Mandate
  • Facilitated Space
  • Stewards
• Chapter 11: Saving Money and the World
  • Collective Buying Agent
  • Economic Stimulus
  • Center of Learning
  • Safety Net
    • An Assured Path to Irrelevance or An Outright Impeachment of Our Basic Principles
  • Steward of Cultural Heritage
  • Third Space
  • Cradle of Democracy
    • Democracy and Transparency
    • Democracy and Access
    • Democracy and Education
    • Democracy and Higher Expectations
  • Symbol of Community Aspirations
• Chapter 12: A Platform for Knowledge Development
  • A System of Systems
  • From Lending to Sharing
  • What’s Your Passion
  • Components of the Library Platform
    • Access Provision
    • Knowledge Creation
    • Environment
    • Motivation
• Chapter 13: Fitting Knowledge in a Box
  • Daedalus’ Maze
  • Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, But What About Academic Libraries
• Chapter 14: Academic Libraries
  • A Library with an Integrated Research and Development Agenda
  • Integrating Students Across the Campus in Library Service
  • The Library Serves as a Hub for New Forms of Instruction
  • Reinventing the Academic Press to be a Publisher of the Community
  • Making the Most Important Decision a Faculty Makes More Informed
  • Academic Library Conclusion
• Chapter 15: School Libraries
  • iTeams by Sue Kowalski
  • iTeams Take-Aways
• Chapter 16: Public Libraries
  • Community Reference
  • Public Library Summary
• Chapter 17: Engines of Advancement

From Mission to Missionary

• Chapter 18: Battle Plan for the Faithful
  • Continuing Education
    • Expect More World Tour
      • Lack of Staff
      • Fear of Failure
    • ILEAD USA
    • New Librarianship Master Class
  • Key Success Factors
    • Emphasize Teachable Skills
    • Link to Longstanding Concepts
    • Build Cohorts
    • Use Projects and Inquiry When Possible
    • Cross Boundaries
    • Demonstrate Comfort with Ambiguity
    • Build Communities Not Websites
    • Provide Opportunities for Introspection and Inspiration
• Chapter 19: FAQs (Frequently Argued Questions)
  • Open question #1: What about fiction?
  • Open question #2: What about librarians who don’t work in public services?
  • Open question #3: What about the autodidacts?
  • Open question #4: What about non-institutional libraries?
  • This Approach Doesn’t Work for Small Libraries
  • New Librarianship is Just for Public Libraries
  • Your Turn
• Chapter 20: Coda

 

 

I’ve put together a page trying to sum up the discussions around the forthcoming Radical’s Guide to New Librarianship held this past Monday at the ALA MidWinter Conference. It includes opening & closing remarks, major points discussed by the group, and a transcript of the online companion session.

A special thanks to ALA and Mary Ghikas for setting aside the time. Thanks to all who participated, and please continue the conversation.

I have just signed a contract with MIT Press for the publication of The Radical’s Guide to New Librarianship, a follow up to The Atlas of new Librarianship. Over the next few weeks and months I will be reaching out to you for help in ensuring the Radical’s Guide helps you to better serve our communities, become better librarians, and transform librarianship into a profession of radical positive change.

I am not doing this alone. To help make the Radical’s Guide a reality Kimberly Silk, Wendy Newman, and Lauren Britton have joined me in a self-titled group calling itself the “New Librarianship Collaborative.” Together we’ll be reaching out to look for stories, ideas, and contributions (and yes, we are always looking for more members).

What will the new book offer (besides being paper back, lighter, and also have an ebook version)? I have three major goals:

• Expand the ideas of the Atlas into libraries as institutions and a deeper look at communities
• Provide a curricular view of New Librarianship for easy incorporation into classes and continuing education
• Provide hands on tools for implementing New Librarianship in your community.

This is not another edition of the Atlas. Rather it focuses on making things happen by building upon the Atlas’ focus on deep theory and concepts.

Because of the new effort you will see a few changes in the very near future:

• I have set up a page on New Librarianship and a sub-page specifically for the Radical’s Guide that includes ongoing information on the new effort, and New Librarianship in general. The new page will include calls for feedback and polls on topics in the new book.
• The existing Atlas website is being folded into my personal site (over time). This will make the incorporation of new materials from the Radical’s Guide will be easier to maintain and update. Eventually the domain newlibrarianship.org will point to this site. So if you want to keep up with developments, you are int eh right place.

I am thrilled to say MIT Press is again the publisher of this new effort. Our goal is to make a book that is immediately useful, as well as easily accessible in content and form. In that light we are hoping for a final book that is portable and very affordable (seriously, like plus or minus 20 bucks).

I hope you will join Kim, Wendy, Lauren and myself in creating a tool for radical positive change agents seeking to unleash the potential and knowledge of their communities.