AdriAnne,

I love your summary of Professor Stephens’ golden nuggets on what it means to work in a library, be a librarian today, and to make an impact. While we can ignore the technology and how it has impacted our profession, at the end of the day it is all about people and relationships. I love this about our work.
Sara

Hi Adrianne,

Thank you for sharing, this was a great post and made me reflect on my day-to-day at work. Reflective practice is crucial to making the best out of patron interactions!

@Michael Yes, please! I was not able to attend the last two Zoom class chats, so I would love to attend a session. I think offering two sessions for that weekend is more than accommodating.

@michael Saturdays work so much better for me! I will come to the one on the 7th. : )

@michael Those two dates sound great, Dr. Stephens! Thank you so much for being so accommodating for us!

@michael I’d appreciate the Saturday as a possibility! I work my full time job during the week but also work a shift on Sundays at a private school so haven’t been able to make the other meetings.

@michael Like Monica, I also want to make it to a Zoom chat since I missed the previous ones. Saturday works for me!

This is a great inspiration report idea, and I also love the design! Digital literacy is extremely important, especially with the overload of misinformation. As you mentioned, with social media apps like Instagram and Tiktok, many teenagers use them as sources of “news” and actual information – and that’s terrifying. It’s important that teenagers (and everyone really) learns how to fact check and take in proper information.

Hi Cat!
First off, what a beautiful structure to your post. You explain the concept of third places so well—I love the description of a third place as a “home away from home”. This is what libraries feel like to me. I too, have been feeling pretty down lately in terms of thinking about the future pf libraries given current events however, seeing the smiles on the faces of patrons never fails to cheer me up. I think you chose a fantastic topic to highlight given the circumstances surrounding libraries at the moment.

@arthurkolat, I absolutely LOVE this! I’m already a huge proponent of libraries helping people to share their stories, but adding music to this just makes it more powerful. I believe in the power of music to bring people together, no matter their background, so of course storytelling that incorporates it will be an even stronger community-builder.

I hate so much what’s happened to twitter these past couple of years. It used to be such a big source of happiness (fandom) and information for me. I hate that so many of us have felt the need to leave. : (

And I’m really struggling this semester, which makes me sad because this class and the other I’m taking were ones that I was very much looking forward to. It’s just really hard to focus. Thank you for the empathy, @michael .

Professor,

Thanks so much for the grace and understanding, as well as willingness to be so flexible. It is amazing and very appreciated.

Love the kilt! My family is of the Stewart lineage, with a couple of my great aunts lived in Orkney.

Take care,
Sara

These last few weeks have been a challenge for sure. I love the kilt it looks great. Thank you for your flexibility – it is appreciated.
Carlee

@michael Thank you for your kind words and for being such an amazing professor. This is my second class with you, and I just love the way you teach and how you care about all of your students. You embody the “librarian spirit” and inspire me to be a great librarian. Also, what an awesome picture – you look so majestic!!

@michael I second what Millicent said! Thank you Professor Stephens for being a light for us!

Dr. Stephens,
I cannot thank you enough for your inspirational and empathetic words. I admire the work that you do and your modules have honestly been the highlights of my day these past few weeks. That is an awesome kilt by the way! Thank you for always sharing pictures of your adventures away from class! 🙂 @michael

@michael Thank you for the check-in. This semester had me quite busy with life things outside of the course, and before I realize it Thanksgiving is here. I will do my best to get caught up on the backlog in time!

I agree with all the above comments that your kilt photo looks wonderful! Imagine if this was the About the Author photo in your next book! 😀

But I can also relate to the lament of Twitter, not just from a long-standing time of using the site, but how the changes are creating such a deterrent to the credibility of information. So many users and official entities were able to make use of the real-time update culture, but now that’s all being thrown into jeopardy. Migrating to another site is possible, but it also means starting up again.

@allofbethany Apologies for not replying to this! Thank you for there kind words on my kilt.

You are so right about Twitter and migrating. I’m on Blue Sky now but I am not feeling it as much as I thought I would.

@michael thank you for sharing! I won’t have to tackle my e-Portfolio until next fall, but I’ve already thought about it with a little trepidation. It’s reassuring to read this in advance!

Thanks for this very measured take on a topic that provokes a lot of kneejerk reactions, in both directions. I tend to fall on the side of it being largely a negative tool for the humanities. Something that will reorient the ways we discuss and teach critical thinking.

Right now, there is a huge, overwhelming push away from the humanities as being an entirely impractical field. STEM rules the land. This is reflected in the quote above, where ChatGPT is framed a kind of calculator and the process of thinking through an idea as being tedious, already mastered steps. This is, of course, true in math, where equations must follow specific set patterns and rules. But if you’re writing an essay or working out a research question, it’s the personal struggle that gives the work its real value. The human element is what gives it its value. If you teach people to skip this difficult work, and to rely on what are essentially borrowed ideas coldly cobbled together from variety of unknown sources, you run the risk of seriously stunting their ability to develop any genuinely new or exciting ideas.

Hi @louis, thanks for your comment. I am right there with you. I have seen that same argument comparing ChatGPT to calculators, and the problem for me is that it’s not being used that way. I like the general idea behind Moriarty telling students “writing makes you smarter. ChatGPT makes you sound like everybody else.” That’s a great argument… but it’s falling on deaf ears. My students did not care about developing skills. They care about getting the assignment over with. And that’s not a dig at the students. In my personal experience, young students often must be taught to care, and the process of writing is one way to teach them that. In cases like that, ChatGPT builds a bridge from the start of the learning process to the end of it, allowing students to completely skip the actual learning.

Going back to the calculator example, we as educators allow students to use calculators in upper level coursework only, such as calculus and trig. I don’t know what constitutes that upper level coursework within the humanities– I don’t know who those students might be. But I know who they aren’t: highschoolers who are just getting the hang of writing.

@bklint I was actually wondering about this recently – how professors actually detect if a student used an AI tool or not. There are several students at the university I work at who have openly admitted to me that they use ChatGPT to write papers or to summarize projects all the time, and they never get caught. Regardless, when students do this they are only cheating themselves and will have a hard time in their careers trying to come up with original thoughts or ideas.

@bklint I really like your take on this, and I agree with what Louis said about it provoking knee-jerk responses. I’d not heard that Moriarty quote before but I think it’s so true! AI works with existing data, whereas human minds–while admittedly drawing inspiration from past writers’ ideas, style, etc–can employ imagination in a singular way. Frequently on my mind is a Reddit quote I saw about someone doubting the existence of human souls until they saw AI-generated art.

Also, like you and the others have mentioned, I do think that students who skip the learning process/engaging with material are robbing themselves of education. I mentioned in one of my posts that a family friend’s classmate “wrote” her college essays using generative AI, which I think will set her up for difficulty unless she plans to keep submitting AI essays and can get away with it. That said, there definitely are ways it can be used to supplement education, such as help in brainstorming research topics or expediting the process of creating Open Education Resources (which can consume too much staff time to be feasible, but which also eliminate financial barriers to study). Such materials would need a THOROUGH review by faculty, but I do think there’s merit there.

Anyway, great post! I love thinking about this topic and hadn’t really done so prior to this course.

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for sharing your visit to the Salt Lake City Public Library, this place looks so cool and I appreciate you taking the time to delve into the various aspects of the library! I would love to totally visit one day.

@kylehanson This library looks so amazing! I’m glad you had some time to explore, and in turn share with us. I particularly love the local artist sticker machine – I have never seen anything like that and it is just too cool. The seed library is also super neat – I love when libraries incorporate gardening.

@claireburke I have never been to a human library, but it is now on my bucket list to find one that I can attend. The concept is just so cool. It is one thing to read about a culture, it is a whole other thing to actually meet someone that is a part of that culture and hear first-hand stories and experiences.

Hi @claireburke,

I really love the idea of the human library. I genuinely wish I could experience it first-hand. I already love hearing about others lived experiences through documentaries and YouTube. I can’t imagine how much more real and life-changing it would be to experience it in-person, being able to witness that person’s body language in addition to their words. It’s truly inspiring to think that how much respect and change these encounters can spark, especially in younger generations. Thank you for sharing what libraries can, and in my opinion, should be about!

Thank you so much, Louis. Yes, libraries are so vital to so many, as sanctuaries and for connection. I wish everyone could see and understand this!

@inabookbind I love that you turned inward for this reflection! I agree that librarians who are happy and healthy will serve their communities better, so it’s mutually beneficial to grant staff time for self-care and peer connection. My library holds staff days with guest speakers, breakout sessions, and yummy treats, but it’s only once a year! It seems that the effects can wane over time, so I think it’s an important point to hold them more frequently in whatever capacity a library can manage.

Hi @inabookbind,
I really appreciate your post emphasizing on the importance of a fun and enjoyable staff learning experience that actually focuses on workers’ well-being (in particular their mental health) rather than exclusively focusing on patrons’ wants and needs. This is such an essential topic!

The examples you shared, like the Oak Park Public Library and the Cherry Hill Public Library’s staff day, look absolutely fantastic and really inspiring. I wish there were more libraries prioritizing their employees’ growth and wellness with more than just the annual staff development day. I think they should take place at least once a month, because investing in the staff not only improves workplace morale but actually leads to greater community service in the long haul. Aka, a win-win situation!!

Hi @acorey! As someone who worked for many years at library service desks, I feel this one deeply. I didn’t know that the thing I was often doing was “surface acting”. It’s just something I had to do when I was feeling too depressed or anxious to interact with people — you put it aside and act like everything is fine because you don’t want to be greeting people with that kind of energy. It does take a lot out of you! I did find, like you noted, that sharing my struggles with my colleagues was a great help.

@terribeth, it is nice that you also feel that sharing your struggles with co-workers helps reduce the stress! I think it also builds comraderie and relationships with your co-workers! On the subject of surface acting on your job, I also found that I have done this, when awsering a call, on the phone. I get into what I call my “customer service voice”, no matter what I am feeling.