#library

Although this assignment was officially supposed to be about evaluating one reference material in our collection, and then suggesting how we could upgrade that resource, with our instructor’s support I have shifted my lens slightly. Instead, I will evaluate two digital reference encyclopedias that we have access to in the division in which I am employed; Encyclopedia Britannica School (EB) and World Book Online (WBO).  

The division in which I work currently subscribes to two online reference encyclopedias that have completely replaced the gargantuan print copies that were weeded from our collection several years ago. Approximately 5 years ago (just at the beginning of my time in the library) the division moved from World Book Online to EB School as a way to reduce costs. We regained our World Book subscription recently, as part of a move to improve digital collections for online learning. Because we only recently obtained it, I am unfamiliar with World Book’s digital format.  

The goal for what follows is not so much for me to promote one over the other, but rather to identify the unique benefits of both so that they can be communicate with the teachers in my division, and effectively used by both staff and students. For those with more limited budgets who stumble across my blog, this could also be used to determine which of the two is a better fit for your program. 

My evaluation of each will be informed by a rubric that has been inspired by Riedling and Houston’s evaluation and selection criteria for Encyclopedias. They suggest the following seven criteria: 

• Accuracy – is the material correct and well-reviewed?
• Authority – who wrote the articles within the encyclopedias and what is their reputation (both publisher and author)?
• Currency – how up to date is it?
• Format – how is it designed?
• Indexing – how do you find information
• Objectivity – is the material biased, what is emphasized, excluded or not?
• Scope – is it appropriate for its intended audience? (Riedling & Houston, 2019 pp. 66-67)

In my rubric below, you will see that I have subsumed the indexing criteria into a new criterion that I have called Features, a section that highlights many of the parts of digital encyclopedias that would be impossible in their analog counterparts. You’ll notice that some criteria only have weak and strong ratings – for these areas I have thought of this rubric as more of a checklist where they either have them or they don’t.

At First Glance

Both EB and WBO contain access to articles at 3 levels of increasing complexity. In the EB ecosystem, this is called Elementary (1), Middle (2), and Secondary (3), while in WBO, it is Kids, Student, and Advanced. The EB main pages allow for searching any level directly from this page, while the WBO one does not.

Access to other features is also available from these main pages:

EB	WBO
ImageQuest (rights cleared search database)	Discover (marketed as differentiated content resource)
Enciclopedia Moderna (Spanish)	Timeline Builder
Encyclopaedia Universalis Junior (French)	Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos (Spanish)
Encyclopaedia Universalis (French)	L’Encyclopédie Découverte (French)

Cost

There is a significant cost differential between the two online subscriptions. Our division, which has a student population of around 15000 students, and pays a per student cost for both subscriptions.

Encylopedia Britannica School has a total cost of $7 012 (an approximate cost of $0.47 per student).

World Book Online has a total cost of $15 834 (an approximate cost of $1.06 per student) (M. Carlos, personal communication, February 7, 2022)

The Analysis

On each picture below, slide the bar up and down to see how EB School (blue) and World Book Online (green) were rated on each criterion.

Accuracy and Reputation

Both of these online encyclopedias have long histories and positive reputations. Britannica’s reputation leans a bit more scholarly than the World Book (Grossman, 2017), but its school version does not outwardly appear to be that way. This one is a coin toss.

Authority

In terms of authority once again, there seems to be little significant difference. Both give author/contributor information for articles written at the most advanced levels, but do not at the Elementary/Kids ones. EB provides slightly more bio materials on the contributors, while WBO does it more consistently at the Middle/Student level. They are both homes to well-respected editorial staff.

Currency

While all of the article citations I checked in WBO are listed as being from the year 2022, it is highly unlikely that they have updated their entire encyclopedia (or at least the 11 random curricular and student interest topics that I used for analyzing) in the one and a half months that have passed so far this year. All EB school entries that I checked, however, were marked with the date that the article was last updated. This is a layer of transparency that is necessary in a quickly changing world.

Format

Here Encyclopedia Britannica School gets the edge. Access to ImageQuest significantly improves media access compared World Book. Interestingly, while both have hyperlinks at the upper two levels of complexity, only EB does so at the lowest one. Perhaps this is meant as a way to reduce distractions, or as a way to ensure that the built in dictionary works on all words.

EB School also makes it significantly easier to level up and down through article complexities, which you can view in the video below.

Objectivity

Both of these encyclopedias have significant reputations, and I really debated how to rate World Book in this manner, but I took into consideration Riedling and Harlow’s recommendation to look into coverage of controversial topics (2019, p. 23). To test this, I searched for abortion, transgender, and capital punishment in both, and received the following results:

Topic	EB	WBO
abortion	* no article at Elementary level, balanced articles at Middle/High	* no article at Kids level, balanced articles at Student and Advanced levels
transgender	* articles at all levels	* no article at Kids level, the same article at both Student and Advanced
capital punishment	* articles at all levels	* no article at Kids level, balanced articles at Student and Advanced levels

Interestingly, searching for abortion in World Book Online Kids does pull up results, but only to politicians and political parties that strongly oppose it. Also, EB School has an entry for World Book, but the reverse is not true (Encyclopedia Britannica School, 2016).

Scope

The biggest downside to both encyclopedias is that for a Grade 5-9 school, many of the articles contained within both are written at a level far outside of the independent range of younger learners. To test this, I copied and pasted encyclopedia articles out of both, and obtained readability statistics from Microsoft Word. Most materials, even from Elementary (EB) and Kids (WBO) levels were written at a Grade 8 or higher level.

Limited materials can be found on topics like Minecraft, Roblox, or k-pop artists BTS. This is not unusual for academic resources, but it is an area that could be expanded on to improve student engagement.

Features

In terms of features, World Book takes a slight edge, although it should be noted that some of them look at bit dated (like its world atlas). Teacher training is also a strength, with a much more utilitarian and useful support page – that includes videos and sign-ups for online seminars. Both offer translation features, but WB stands out as having more translations that are not reliant on computer translation programs, and the ability to have articles read aloud in languages other than English, Spanish, and French. The citation builder available in World Book is another feature that EB does not have (it only provides citations for the articles and materials found within it), but it isn’t especially user friendly or utilitarian, especially when compared to free online options like mybib.

Reflection

Both of these sources are highly reputable and well respected sources of encyclopedic information. I am thankful that our students have access to both, as between the two we have significant coverage of both curricular and student interest topics, although there is room for improvement in both. EB’s ease of use and the simplicity of jumping between entry complexities, and World Book’s Translations and Voice features and advanced search functions are strengths of both that are all helpful for student differentiation and lacking in the other. While the articles themselves are quite balanced and bias free, I do worry about the search bias, and bias of omission that is shown in World Book results. Ultimately, it seems to me that Encyclopedia Britannica School comes out as a significantly better value for money, especially in a elementary or middle school where some of the pricey features that differentiate between the two are less useful.

References

Carlos, M. (2022, February 7). Question for assignment! [Email to Morgan Arksey].

Encyclopedia Britannica School. (2016, January 26). World Book Encyclopedia. School.eb.com. https://school.eb.com/levels/middle/article/World-Book-Encyclopedia/77483

Grossman, R. (2017, December 7). Long before Google, there was the encyclopedia. Chicago Tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-flash-encyclopedia-world-book-britannica-1210-20171205-story.html

Riedling, A. M., & Houston, C. (2019). Reference skills for the school librarian : tools and tips. Libraries Unlimited.

World Book Online training. (n.d.). World Book Online. Retrieved February 10, 2022, from https://www.worldbookonline.com/training/

Cerebrating on these last few weeks (yes, sometimes I do use the thesaurus), the word connection is the one that comes to mind the most, although you could argue that listening fits just as well. Library patrons, both locally and globally need to be connected and listened to in our spaces. 

It’s important for students to feel connected to the library; if it is not a warm and accepting space we’ll never get students through the door. We connect with them both in our everyday interactions, where they know they can ask us for help or for a personalized book recommendation, and through social media, where I post literary memes and hype new books. I feel as if school libraries are taking a page out of the public library playbook and opening up our spaces to be community connection points, rather than simply academic study spaces.

Students need to be connected to the books that they choose to read, rather than being assigned them by a leveling system (that is arguably arbitrary). Some of the events that most help create a culture of reading are those that bring about genuine connections with others – at a micro level, things like classroom book clubs or buddy reading between classes, but in macro terms, world-wide events like the Global Read Aloud. Being able to connect with the thoughts and opinions of other readers through apps and services like Goodreads give us the ability to connect with stories and ideas that would have been unimaginable even twenty years ago. We also need to be able to connect students to resources that exist both inside and outside of the library walls – whether digital, or through connections with the public library system. More and more we see that our clients (students and staff) need to be able to make connections between themselves and the characters of the books they are reading – culturally relevant texts and learning materials are integral to creating a culture of reading. 

When it comes to my own personal development, the need for connections continues. No learning is done in isolation. In order to learn we must live in a community (physical or digital) that allows us to interact with the thoughts, words, images and ideas of others. These shared connections are what truly makes all learning possible. Through my research for this course, as well as the wonderful suggestions of my peers, I can connect through local organizations, or international ones like ISTE. Twitter, Facebook and blogging platforms both offer free options (if you consider the gathering of your personal data worthless) for personal Professional Development and the ability to connect with other Teacher-Librarians throughout the world. Without other individuals to connect and share with, we would be limited to our own innovations – but it’s the connections and collaborations that allow new ideas to flourish and problems to be solved. 

As Teacher-Librarians, the first step to sharing our learning with others is by connecting with our peers and getting to know them as individuals. Being adaptable and flexible is necessary, because people are more likely to engage with something that they see as having a connection to them personally. We need to make connections between what we learn during our own professional learning and what will be useful/relevant to the teachers we work with. We need to make time to connect with these people to share, and we need to connect with them at a level that meets their level of skill and interest. In my experience, the best PD opportunities have been the ones that have allowed teachers to connect with each other and share their ideas and experiences with one another. Connecting over food came up countless times while I was reading through other blog posts. There are so many more options for ways to connect with people, whether through collaboration, lunch and learns, book studies, ed camps, or PLNs. It is only through connections that relationships are possible, and these relationships are the best way to create a collaborative work environment. 

When looking at global libraries, especially in areas home to marginalized populations, connections again resurface as a recurring theme. It is especially important that we connect with individuals in these communities when creating solutions – we don’t simply want to pass off our problems (weeded books, for example) and end up creating unintended economic consequences for parts of the world that are already struggling. We are all connected, and ultimately what negatively impacts one of us, negatively impacts all of us. Modern technology has made it possible for us to connect and interact with people half a world away from us, and to benefit from and hear their solutions to their local issues. It is the issue of connection that struck me the most in my study of the issues faced by libraries in the developing world. These libraries, just like our own, are connecting spaces for their communities, and they are frequently the best sources of internet connections in their communities. Instead of relying on dated texts as information sources, these libraries want access to high quality digital resources. These resources would leave these communities connected to the world, rather than at the whims of our leftovers. 

Mobile technology has changed the way that the world connects and has opened the doors of literacy wide open. Before this week, I had never thought about how mobile phones were a gateway to literacy – I took for granted that people could access books, and I minimized the impact that multi-use devices could have on female literacy. But mobile phones are a multi-purpose device, and they connect people to a world of information, including stories to read to their children.  

While reading my way through feedly, I was able to find a wide range of global initiatives that work to connect libraries across the globe to important information. I was struck particularly by Melissa Hunt’s post, which alerted me to the existence of Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL). It is a global organization that connects librarians around the world to technology and information. I was especially struck by their website because the site was truly accessible and would not require top of the line devices to access it – the website offers a text only option that would make access possible on older models of cell phones, or older web browsers. This accessibility makes connection a possibility for all. They also connect users to Free and Open Source Software, along with other important topics for library development.

I think this process has only served to strengthen my interest in digital storytelling. I see it as a great way for us to tell our stories, and to connect with others. Despite differences of access to resources, libraries are connected by a common goal. The same goes for people as well. There is power in story as a tool of connection.  I will be mindful of this as I move on to the next stage of this course and begin to work on my vision of the future assignment. I want to create something that will help teachers and students connect with new technologies and connect with one another. 

Ultimately I think, Libraries are a place of ubuntu; to borrow from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We realize our interconnections and support others in accessing what the world has to offer. This vision is what I want to bring to our future.

“Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, ‘Yu, u nobunto’; ‘Hey so-and-so hasubuntu.’ Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, ‘My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours.’ We belong in a bundle of life.” 

Tutu, D. (2000). No Future Without Forgiveness. New York, NY: Image/Doubleday.

Sources

EIFL. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.eifl.net/

SirsiDynex. [SirsiDynex]. (2016, October 6). Library Connections Video. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6m1rTDiqlI

Tutu, D. (2000). No Future Without Forgiveness. New York, NY: Image/Doubleday.

Image Source

Internet connection map. [Photograph]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
https://quest.eb.com/search/132_1372851/1/132_1372851/cite

Warning folks – I have a lot to say about reading. Who would imagine that there would be passionate readers in a Teacher-Librarian education program, am I right?

I am blessed with the best team member; a library technician who is warm and kind, a lover of books and the kids of our school. Everyone loves her. Kids. Teachers. EAs. Custodial staff. Visiting parents. Between the two of us, we have spent a lot of time building relationships with our students and making the library a warm and inviting place that students want to be. I think that ultimately, this culture and passion for reading are the keystone species of our strong reading ecosystem – everything else is just a tool to get us there.

What follows below is a list of things that we are doing, and that we would like to do, and what we struggle with when it comes to engaging our school population in reading:

Physical Considerations 

We used to have a leveled-book section available to students in our library. Getting rid of it was one of the first things that I did upon moving into my role as Teacher-Librarian at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year. I went out for a steak supper to celebrate its demise.  

This article, posted by the School Library Journal this week, does a good job of summing up some of my concerns about leveled reading. One of them is that different leveling systems place a book at vastly different levels. One favourite in our library, Smile by Raina Telgemeier, can be rated anywhere from a Grade Two to a Grade Eight reading level. So… what is that level really telling us?  

Now, I believe there is definitely a place for leveled texts in education; some of our now homeless collection were shared with our Resource and EAL teachers, others with classroom teachers, many were permanently weeded, ones in sets were combined into a guided reading collection, and those with good circulation stats and eye appeal were added to our regular collection. Under the previous T-L, several classes had been required to take out 2 or 3 “good fit” books from this collection, and observations/conversations with students told me that they hated it. It was the one way I decided to rock the boat my first year in the position. To soften the blow, and for teacher reference, I created lists in Destiny Collections of books available at various levels that could be found amongst the general collection. In our school library, students were not going to be forced to take out books from a special section. Students would be free to take out materials based on their interests, because all books are leveled books, and part of our job in the library is to help make sure that students can make the call of what a good fit book is independently. And just as much our job is to make sure that we have books that they want to read. Motivation is a key aid in determining whether a student will even try to understand something they read. 

It wasn’t until a year later that I really had the data to support my actions. Those leveled texts had made close to 1700 of our yearly circulations, but despite eliminating those call numbers from our collection our circulations were up by over 500. Bless the power of choice. 

The next year our goal was to genrefy our fiction collection. It took a village of volunteers to make it happen, but by May (without closing the library, I might add) we had it done. And our statistics are once again showing us that we have made the correct choice. Our circulation stats for this year and last year show that we are up over 1600 circs, and that was only at the year’s halfway point. We are seeing kids who used to only take out Wimpy Kid books from the library widen and select texts from the Humour genre. Ultimately, what it has helped allow us to do is make the library a more accessible space for students who struggled finding a place to even start looking. This article from the School Library Journal is a great overview of things to keep in mind. Because ultimately, the first step in creating a culture of reading must be getting books into the hands of students. 

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Connections

The Global Read Aloud has been a success in building a culture of reading in the school, and any other books written by GRA authors are amongst our most circulated novels. Teachers between Grades Five to Seven take part in it yearly and have mystery Skypes with other classes reading the novels. It’s a great way to bring the world into our classrooms, and the titles are always #ownvoices and progressive. I would like to see our Grade Eight and Nine classes get involved; while I always get sets of the YA GRA novels for our Book Club collection, I have had no success in encouraging our team at that level to take part. I’ve found it especially challenging with Grade 9 classes, who only see their students for six periods a cycle and don’t want to ‘lose’ their time. 

Our Grade Seven team has created a final assessment for the year that really focuses on community and reading. Students are partnered with a nearby elementary school student, and several times over the course of the year they meet up for buddy reading times. This is tied in with a study on what makes effective picture books, as well as an interview with their buddy – and after they complete this they spend May-June drafting and producing a special picture book based on their interests. Their last buddy reading period is spent reading and sharing this specially written book.

Digital Books 

While we haven’t moved towards ebooks, except those that can be accessed by educators from the Province of Manitoba’s Online Resource Library, we have started growing a collection of digital audiobooks for students to sign out online. They have been well used, but we struggle with some limitations from Follett – especially that they require internet access to listen to. This is unlike the OverDrive system that is used by the Winnipeg Public Library, where for the loan period the digital files exist on the individual’s personal device which allows them to listen to them without internet access. 

Classroom teachers often use their free Epic! accounts as Listen to Reading stations during classroom reading/Daily 5 time. I run workshops in the library to help students access the free digital resources from the Winnipeg Public Library; resources that would be too expensive to provide at a school level, but which are provided free of charge for Public Library members. The school does have memberships for RAZ-Kids and Reading A-Z that are primarily used for supporting EAL and students at the five-six level. Many of the teachers who were fond of the leveled library use this in their classrooms for students requiring a more targeted intervention. I’m not sold on whether they add to the culture of reading, but they are being used as an instructional tool, and it is a handy resource for parents who want to have something their child can “do as homework”. 

All books welcome

We have really upped our game in terms of Graphic Novels and Manga over the past several years. 6.84% of our collection is a Graphic Novel or Manga, but these books make up 27.75% of our circulations. We have been working on adding graphic novels and picture books into our book club sets as well. I am currently heavily weeding our non-fiction collection, but we are focusing collection development in the area of gaming. I am certain that every book I put in our library about Minecraft, Roblox or Fortnite has multiple holds on it. I have probably added 20-30 new titles in this area so far this year, and I still can’t outpace demand. Student recommendations also usually make up a significant part of our book orders. 

My professional development goal my first year in the library, and a continued focus every year since, has been in having the characters and topics of the books in our library reflect the diversity of the community that we live in. For example, our Grade Eight team has consistently done a mythology themed literature circle unit, and our collection skewed heavily to Greek and Norse mythology. Adding titles like Sarwat Chadda’s The Savage Fortress, Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Shah and the End of Time, and Kwame Mbalia’s brand new Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky has breathed new life into the study and is truly more inclusive. I really recommend the site weneeddiversebooks.org  as a starting point in your search for books written by and featuring Black and Indigenous People Of Colour (BIPOC) and LGBTQ* persons.  

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Last year, borrowing an idea from Chapters Indigo, we got a giant stack of Staff Picks stickers made online and had staff members pick some of their favourite books to tag and sign. I’m hoping to extend this to our library advisory committee in the future. Kids seem to search out their favourite teacher’s choices, and it’s been a great way to pull students towards some classics. 

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In previous years, our library has been heavily involved in the Manitoba Young Reader’s Choice Awards, but to add some new variety we cut down how many copies of these books we purchased and have also invested in the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading books. Kids have particularly liked the non-fiction options available in this program. These awards are familiar and well promoted within our division, which means that kids know to look for them, and thus they are well utilized.

Social Media

I use Goodreads ratings heavily when talking or otherwise advertising books, and have heavily encouraged students to download the app. The scan feature is probably my favourite thing about it, and I work it in with my Grade Eight and Nine classes during their orientation at the start of the year. 

We do have a new book section in the library, but because new books tend to not stay in the library for long, I have been using our library Instagram to talk and promote new books. I will admit that I also post a lot of semi-school related memes and puns – but those are more a hook to snag some students who might not be drawn to follow the LLC otherwise. It sort of makes me feel like I’m one of those parents who hides vegetables in chocolate chip cookies. I’ll run fun promotions for first access to popular new books out of the Instagram account as well – like this one we did for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball. 

Room for improvement

I think we have significant room to grow in creating a culture of reading non-fiction books. That side of our collection is really struggling to hold interest; with access to the internet and the subscription services, I’m finding that there is significantly less demand for many curricular topics. Teachers aren’t using our informational texts, and honestly they aren’t very interesting or engaging. Promotion of narrative non-fiction has helped, but I feel like there is still much to do.  I found this article through the School Library Journal, which focuses on the five main types of non-fiction, and I think our space would be best served by browsable and narrative texts especially.

I have also been playing around with the idea of inserting QR codes for Flipgrid into the front of books and inviting students to post a short video review after reading, which with student permission could be played on our daily news broadcast. This idea came from someone on the “Future Ready Librarians” Facebook group, which is a pretty frequent source of inspiration – it’s like daily PD on my couch.

I also feel like I can do better in promoting books to staff. I’ve tossed the idea out there of running staff book clubs on new and exciting YA/Children’s novels so that staff can expand their repertoire. Global Read Aloud has gotten a few of our staff to bring new books into their class reading options – it would be nice to add more to their toolkit. If we use new titles in our literature circle/book club collection, hopefully we can hook teachers (and then students) on these new materials as well. 

A section of the website of the National Library of New Zealand on the role of libraries in building a reading culture mentions many tips to building a reading culture. One of them is using school assembly time to promote books. Because of some major school construction projects, we haven’t been able to hold a whole school assembly yet this year, but I would love to be able to use my Library Leader group (grades five to seven), and Library Volunteers (grades eight and nine) to promote books they love. This could also be completed on our morning video announcement show “Live at Leach”. 

In their article “Building a school reading culture”, Merga and Mason tell us that having a staff that reads was reported by Teacher Librarians as a huge contributing factor to having a strong school reading culture. Here I have room to develop as well. Some teachers report having no time with the marking they “must” keep up with, others have too many things on their plate outside of school with young families, and others will readily admit to not having any interest in reading.  In this same article, one of the interviewees reports that they view the staff at their school as their clientele just as much as the students. This really resonated with me. This interviewee set up a section for staff pleasure reading in the library, and stock it with 30 new adult reads before breaks (Merga & Mason, 2019, pp. 182-183), and put up advertising in staff rooms and in staff bathrooms.  This is an easy first step, and one that I can easily incorporate into my practice.

Sources

D’Orio, W. (2020, February 3). Reading Levels Unfairly Label Learners, Say Critics. And Then There. Retrieved from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=Where-did-Leveling-Go-Wrong-leveled-reading-lexiles-AR-libraries-books-fountas-pinnell

Merga, M. K., & Mason, S. (2019). Building a school reading culture: Teacher librarians’ perceptions of enabling and constraining factors. Australian Journal of Education, 63(2), 173–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944119844544

A school-wide reading culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/reading-engagement/understanding-reading-engagement/a-school-wide-reading-culture

Stewart, M. (2018, April 4). Understanding-and Teaching-the Five Kinds of Nonfiction. Retrieved from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=understanding-teaching-five-kinds-nonfiction

We Need Diverse Books. (2020, January 24). Retrieved from https://diversebooks.org/

Witteveen, A. (2019, September 25). Ditching Dewey? These Ideas Can Get You Started on Genrefication. Retrieved from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=ditching-dewey-libraries-These-Ideas-Can-Get-You-Started-on-Genrefication

Cover Image Source

Teacher Reads to Students in Day Care. [Photography]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. 
https://quest.eb.com/search/139_1970636/1/139_1970636/cite 807/1/139_1972807/cite