High standards or a high standard of standardness?

Erica McWilliam

SLAQ/IASL Conference, Convention Centre, 30 September, 2010.

Diversity Challenge Resilience: School Libraries in Action - The 12th Biennial School Library Association of

Queensland, the 39th International Association of School Librarianship Annual Conference

incorporating the 14th International Forum on Research in School Librarianship,

Brisbane, QLD Australia, 27 September – 1 October 2010.

Email: sdawson@uow.edu.au

From To

Silent singular reader Reading as a team sport

Reading for enlightenment Reading for belonging

Books Vooks

Page-turning Key-tappingPage-turning Key-tapping

In-depth reading Power browsingLinear texts Linked fragments

Single focus technologies Interruption technologies

Oasis of bookish tranquility Space of digital interactivity

Training, Sorting

Credentialling

•

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a place to congregate, talk, write, read, Size of this preview: 789 × 599 pixels

•provider of pleasant and engaging spaces of

interaction and self-managed learning

•arbiter of the affairs of the neighbourhood

•broker of social relationships•broker of social relationships

•assembler of newspapers and other learning materials

•source of gossip

•alert to ‘special needs’ of clients

•business manager

� Usefully ignorant

� Seriously playful(A)

� Epistemologically agile

� Team orientation

� Ideas translator &broker

� Technologically savvy

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Short-term Time Long-term

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Service provider

• Routines and habits

•Template applications

•Simple rules and

procedures

•Repetition, memorisation

•Limited appraisal

Procedures manager

•Staff supervision

•Program leadership

•Higher credential

•Promotion

•Wider responsibilities

•Annual appraisal

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Time

Crisis leader/manager

All other quadrants +:

•Good judgment •Quick action

•Sound monitoring•Capacity to adapt

•Strategic alliances

Innovative Leader

•Creative generative thinker

•Lead learner•Ruthlessly curious

•Calculated risk-taker•Active networker

•Proactive team member •Creative broker

com

ple

xity

•Creative broker

Service provider

• Routines and habits

•Template applications

•Simple rules and

procedures

•Repetition, memorisation•Limited appraisal

Procedures manager

•Staff supervision

•Program leadership

•Higher credential

•Promotion

•Wider responsibilities•Annual appraisal

com

ple

xity

Time

•demands knowledge of risk

•produces new risks for the

organisation

•hyper-rational and deeply pragmatic

logic

•‘self-scrutinising’ audit mechanisms

•new organisational arrangements for

monitoring performance Benchmarking activity

•intimate knowledge of the client-as-portfolio;

•more informed about, more focused on, and more likely to contribute to, on-line information flow and the on-line information flow and the virtual information storage systems;

•more adept at finding and using organisational systems;

•more likely to invest professional self-development.

An active enterprising

human resource

•all service providers are to engage in routine diagnosis, classification, and treatment decision-making;

•demands clarification of roles and responsibilities, attention to progression rates, timely response rates for internal and external review and evaluation etc;

•a new visibility for quality claims.

“He’ll be ok – he’s just seen his

key performance indicators...”

•skills and dispositions that apply to new

ecologies for learning

•can be informed by from ‘lifelong

learning’ ecologies from the past

•coffee-house proprietors skills can be

adapted as part of the repertoire of skills

•generic’ risk management is often in

tension with cultural shifts in learning

•professional work as push-and-pull

between compliance and risk-taking.

Stupid optimist seeks the easy life