Cultural Exercises

These are the cultural exercises we were required to consider prior to the trip.  I found both the readings and the exercises quite challenging – not in the difficulty sense, but in the sense of confronting your own views and culture.
The chapter that the exercises were taken from is : What is Culture? from  “Culture and Education” which is now on my list of books to read.

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Exercise 1.1 – You are what you buy.

In a table like the one below, list 10 items that you see as essential to your day-to-day life. Then, for each item, provide the reasons why you bought it and list the effects (as many as you can think of) it has on your identity.
Item
Purpose for buying
How does this shape who you are?
Mobile phone
Communicating – I need it to talk to my friends – they all have one
I’m part of the group and not left out. I’ve got the latest ringtones so I’m pretty up-to-date.
Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 3).

Exercise 1.6 – Evaluating Values

Make a table like the one below and list all the values you think you hold. These might be ethical values, but they also might be ‘things’, such as family or education. Then list where you think you go them from and you you engage in these values on a day-to-day level.
Values
Where you go this from
How you ‘practise’ it
Freedom
Authority
Justice
Equality
Education
Your parents
Go to university
Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 10).

Exercise 1.7 – My Family Culture
In a table like the one below, insert elements from your own family’s activities to get a sense of the culture of your family.
Elements of Culture
My family’s examples
Symbols and signs
My dad wearing a kilt to Sunday lunches at Grandma’s house.
Language
Values
Beliefs
Norms
Rituals
Sunday lunch with Grandma; attendance at school 5 days a week, for around 12 years
Material objects
Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 12).

Exercise 1.10 – The ‘Who am I?’ test

Write down here the first 20 statements you think of about what makes you the person you are. You might want to think about how the context of doing this exercise is shaping your choice of identity markers about yourself.
Who am I? Statements about what makes me, me.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Adapted from Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia (p. 14).

Pre-departure Activities

Activity 1
Thinking back over the past week or month, consider your experiences and identify an experience that made you have unusually strong feelings or reactions. Try to keep your focus on an incident related to your studies or professional life rather than personal experiences. However, if you can’t think of a critical incident from your studies or professional life, it is okay to choose one from your personal life.
Once you have identified a critical incident, take five or ten minutes to write it down and describe it in as much detail as you can remember. Remember to include the who, when, where, what, and how of the incident. (Don’t do the “why” at this point – we’ll get to that later!)


Activity 2
Using the critical incident that you identified and described above, work through the critical incident analysis process and develop an entry for a critical incident log that demonstrates your process of examining your experience. As you work through this process, consider how it feels to work through the process and take note of how long it can take as well.


Activity 3
Quick response ? write down all the words you can think of that answer the question ?What is culture?? You could do this as a mind map or just a list ? up to you.


Activity 4
Write down some of your ideas about how you might live in and understand a community that has knowledge and ways of knowing different to your own. Now, consider the international experience that you are going to participate in: what differences might you find there and how might you work with these?

Activity 5
Read McIntosh’s article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. As you read through, keep your upcoming international experience in mind and what factors might affect what you understand and how you see incidents in your experience.
After you have read the article, respond to the following questions that are designed to guide your reading and encourage you to reflect more deeply on some of the concepts in the article.
  • How do you describe your nationality, ethnicity and race. What do you think are the differences between these descriptors?
  • How many of the items on the checklist (pp. 10-11) can you relate to? Choose three of them and reflect on how the point is relevant to you and why. Give an example to illustrate your thinking.
  • On page 11, McIntosh talks about white privilege really being about white dominance. How does the education system in Australia inadvertently or inexplicitly teach us to exercise white privilege or dominance over others. Think specifically about what is taken for granted or the ‘hidden’ aspects of curriculum, or policy or teaching practice.
  • What might be in your cultural knapsack when you go on your international experience later this year?
  • develop your cultural self-awareness,
  • develop your cultural knowledge of the international context you are visiting, and
  • develop your interaction skills.

Record your responses to these questions in your International Experience Log so that you can come back to them after you have finished your international experience.
Task
Identify and complete at least one thing that you could do for each of the following: 
  • develop your cultural self-awareness,
  • develop your cultural knowledge of the international context you are visiting, and
  • develop your interaction skills.
You might like to keep a track of these in your International Experience Portfolio as part of your predeparture activities.

International Experience Portfolio Background

 International Experience Portfolio
As part of your participation in an international experience program through CSU, you will need to maintain an International Experience Portfolio that includes reflections, actions, photos, images, thoughts, critical incident logs, and so on. The portfolio is NOT A DIARY of events, but rather a critical record of your experiences, thoughts, critical incidents, reflections, and so on. The International Experience Portfolio can be prepared in various ways, e.g. in a book, in a word-processed document, in a PowerPoint, as digital media (e.g. a blog), or however you work best. Keep in mind that not all international experiences will have Internet connections or stable electricity supplies, so if you are planning to do it on a laptop, then you might wish to consider bringing a backup book or place to write your entries.

Study Visit Checklist

Study Visit Checklist for Students 
Goals and users 
• What are the purposes for which the library exists? 
• What is the nature of the community/organisation served? 
• What are the information needs of that community/organisation? 
• What role does the community/organisation play in determining, directing and contributing to the library’s services? 
The collection 
• What is the focus of the collection? What subject areas does it cover? 
• Is there a collection development policy? 
• What media are held, e.g. print, audio visual, CD-ROM, online? 
• Which are the predominant media and why? 
• Has information technology brought about major changes in the way in which information is stored and disseminated? 
• How are materials selected? 
• Is the collection weeded? For what purpose? 
• What strategies are in place to ensure the physical preservation of the collection (including electronic sources)? 
Staff 
• What professional, technical and support staff does the library have? What roles do they play in fulfilling the purposes of the library? 
• What professional development is provided for, or expected of, staff? 
• What flexibility is allowed in staffing to better meet the needs of staff and users? 
Reference services 
• What reference services are provided for users? How are these services provided? 
• What user education is provided? 
• What use is made of the Internet in reference work?
Network infrastructure 
• Which integrated library management system is used? Why is this system in use? 
• What electronic networks operate between the library and its user group? 
• To what extent does the library depend on network access and availability? 
• Does the library provide information and services through a web page or pages to users? What information and services are provided? Has this access significantly extended its user group? 
• Does the library have an information technology plan? 
Technical services 
• What is the perceived function of the catalogue? 
• What standards and services are employed in cataloguing? 
• What access is provided to materials which are not catalogued? 
• Does the library develop and maintain any indexes, classification schemes or subject heading lists of its own? 
• Are metadata standards being used in the cataloguing of online resources? 
Budget 
• What are the library’s sources of funding? 
• What is the level of funding (if not confidential)? 
• How are these funds committed? 
• To what extent do users pay directly for services which they use? 
Promotion 
• How does the library promote and market its services to its potential users? 
Physical environment 

• How suitable are the library’s location, accessibility, size, layout and physical facilities to the fulfilling of its purposes?

Singapore Study Visit – Overview

Library 2.0 or the operation of public services?

Introduction:
An understanding of the Digital Environment and how it is related to libraries is undertaken in the critiquing of three articles each offering different perspectives.  In the first, Anderson (2007a) attempts to find an academic framework within which to analyze “Web 2.0” and “Library 2.0”.  Missingham (2009) describes the Australian experience in encouraging participation in the digital economy and digital citizenship through a national initiative – the Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) and finally the State Government of Victoria (2012) takes the question to a local level in asking what the role of its libraries will be in this digital future. 
Summaries:
Anderson, P. (2007a). ‘All That Glisters Is Not Gold’ — Web 2.0 And The Librarian. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 39(4), 195–198.
In his article Anderson (2007a) examines the concept of Web 2.0 and how this relates to the librarian.  He begins with a history and some definitions of Web 2.0.  He then proposes a three-part framework within which to scaffold discussions around how Web 2.0 impacts the library.  These can roughly be summarized as services / applications, the “six big ideas” and technologies / standards. 
Services / applications include software and social networking.  The “Six Big Ideas” are the principles underpinning the Internet in its current form as outlined by O’Reilly (2005): “individual production and user generated content; harnessing the power of the crowd; data on an epic scale; the architecture of participation; network effects and openness”. (Anderson 2007a, p.196). The final aspect is the technology and accepted standards that underlie the services and applications.  In his article “What is Web 2.0“, Anderson, (2007b) further elaborates on this framework in general with specific focus on implications for libraries from page 36.
Missingham, R. (2009). Encouraging the digital economy and digital citizenship. Special issue on the ALIA Public Libraries Summit 2009, 58(4), 386.
In her article, Missingham (2009) describes the history and status of Australian use of technology with comparative statistics to the UK and Canada.  She gives a background to the creation of ERA and justifies the need of Australians for access to the types of information purchased by the ERA consortium in order to participate in the “digital economy”.  This view has a foundation in the four benefits to narrowing the digital divide in a society: economic equality, social mobility, democracy and economic growth (Internet World Stats,2012).
The final part of her article examines the role of libraries in supporting access to digital resources, not only as subscribers to the ERA, but also in helping the community develop (digital) literacy skills.  She concludes by touching on issues relating to the digital divide in Australia, including connectivity, content issues and the capability of users.  The primary problems highlighted by her concern the gap between rural and metropolitan areas, affordability of services and literacy levels.
Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Libraries. (2012). Tomorrow’s Library: DiscussionPaper. State Government of Victoria.
This discussion paper initiates the first part of a review of the role and function of public libraries in the State of Victoria, Australia in order to determine future strategic directions.  In the document four dimensions of libraries are covered: Collections, resources and programs; Library buildings; Technology; and Service delivery. In each, the topic is introduced with challenges they pose now and in the future and feedback in the form of answers to questions is requested of stakeholders.

Critique:
Anderson’s framework is very useful when reading articles concerning Web 2.0 and Library 2.0.  One can quickly put an article or research in context.  For example Xu, Ouyang and Chu (2009) in “The Academic Library Meets Web 2.0” focuses mainly on the first part of the framework in surveying the websites of 81 academic libraries in the State of New York and neglects any discussion of “big ideas” or technologies and standards.  On the other hand in “ComingTogether around Library 2.0” Miller (2006) concentrates more on the impact of the “big ideas” quoting Ian Davis who said “Web 2.0 an attitude, not a technology” and makes a plea for integrating “library stuff” into normal workflows of library users.
However, no matter how useful a framework may be, unless other researchers adopt it as some kind of standard, its relevance may be questioned.  In reviewing the literature on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 it appears that after a flurry of research and articles in the years 2005-2007 academic interest in that aspect of the topic seems to have waned.  Perhaps research was overtaken by the practicalities of implementing the new technologies, the specifics of integrating systems and licensing matters and dealing with their day-to-day issues.  It can be argued that the framework would have relevance at some point in doing a meta-analysis and literature review of the Web / Library 2.0 literature in the early 21st century.
Anderson opens the point of entry for a discussion of the other two papers when he says: “much of the discussion can often be seen in the context of the wider public debate concerning the operation of public services in a modern, technology-rich environment in which user expectations have rapidly changed (Crawford, 2006), rather than Web 2.0 per se.”  (Anderson, 2007b, p. 36)
We now move to the provision of public services in the form of the establishment of the ERA, (Missingham, 2009) and the specific instance of Victoria Public Libraries. Underlying Missingham’s paper are references to the “digital divide”. The term “digital divide” is very broad and she only touches on aspects of it in a rather unstructured manner, with consideration of “access” in between a “content” discussion, (p. 389) and “literacy” in between the examination of the importance of “access” (p. 395) and little reference to local research such as that of Black and Atkinson (2007) who cover the arguments and literature surrounding the digital divide in Australia very well.  For a better framework to this concept, Warschauer (2003) uses the rubrics of: Physical Resources (computers and connectivity); Digital Resources (content and language); Human Resources (literacy and education) and Social Resources (communities and institutions).  Framing her discussion in this way would have led to a more coherent argument.  Further, her evidence of the divide is anecdotal in the form of selective quotations from submissions to a Senate enquiry (pages 389-390).  Her argument could have been better served by reference to data such as that generated by Ewing and Thomas (2010), for example, “home access by income” and “use by location”, illustrated in the graphs below.
(Ewing and Thomas, 2010, The Internet in Australia. ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, p.10)

(Ewing and Thomas, 2010, The Internet in Australia. ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, p.3)
A shortcoming in the traditional writings on digital divide is the neglect of the concept of “digital natives” versus “digital immigrants”.  Reading the essays collected in “The digital Divide” (Bauerlein, 2011), one has to conclude that all the above papers’ authors are “digital immigrants”  – a term coined by Marc Prensky in 2001.   This is further exposed when one contrasts what is being said and done on the Internet versus in the libraries and written about in academic literature.  For example Harradine (2012) reports on the introduction of eBooks into the Western Australia Public library system.  Her article echoes the earlier experiences in the USA with initial slow take-up by patrons and friction between the publishing companies and libraries (Zickuhr,Rainie, Purcell, Madden, & Brenner, 2012).  Australian reporting on eResources could benefit by looking at worldwide trends in more technical savvy countries.  In contrast, when browsing forums concerning eBooks in Australia, it would appear that patrons step boldly where libraries fear to tread, with early adopters paying to join libraries in the USA and Singapore in order to borrow eBooks that are not available in their local libraries.  These are potentially lost patrons who would not even appear on the radar of the librarians who are complaining about the lack of interest in digital services.
Neither Missingham nor the discussion paper consider the potential “leapfrogging” of terminals and desktop computer ubiquity and use as a result of the uptake in mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones.   Carlucci Thomas (2012) writes about the need for libraries to follow patrons in providing new mobile services.  She posits that adoption of mobile devices is driving the interest in eBooks in the USA where, since May 2011, eBooks outsold print books for the first time on Amazon.  Another digital native librarian – self-described “Edupunk”  – Travis (2012) demonstrates in her blog that cost need not be an obstacle in providing services and Greenhill (2012) echoes this sentiment for the Australian market, highlighting extra-legal “free and easy” aspects to obtaining digital information which librarians need to be aware of.

The Year Book Australia, (2012) in launching its National Year of Reading makes some very astute statements about the changing roles of libraries from being simple repositories of reading materials to being the point of contact for the acquisition of information for all community members “with a focus on the most disadvantaged”. Emphasis is given in this initiative to a wide range of materials both in print and online gleamed from a range of collaborative partnerships.
If one reads the State Government of Victoria discussion paper in conjunction with the Australian Public Library Statistics(2010-2011), it seems to be a rather shameful exercise in the selective use of statistics and quotations.  For example in the discussion on technology, they state  “78.6% of libraries provide a computer lab / Internet area.”  The more relevant statistic would be that Victoria only has 3.62 public access Internet terminals per 10,000 persons, which is one of the lowest in Australia and lags the National average of 4.43, and other states such as South Australia (8.11) (Australian Public Library Statistics, 2012, p.20).
(Public & Indigenous Library Services State Library of Queensland. (2012). Australian Public Libraries Statistical Report 2010-2011. p.20) 
This is not surprising when you dig further and see that there was no spending on electronic resources in libraries at all in the years 2007 to 2010 (ibid. p.19) for the State of Victoria, with a huge catch up spend in 2010-11.
(Public & Indigenous Library Services State Library of Queensland. (2012). Australian Public Libraries Statistical Report 2010-2011. p.18) 
The report is very inwardly focused and does not even make reference to what is happening in the rest of Australia, not to speak of internationally, and could quite possibly be an exercise in reinventing the wheel. Their internal focus is astounding, referring to a “borderless library” and in the same breath speaking of “across the state (of Victoria)” rather than referring to the rest of the country or the world.
A visit to the website of Victoria State Library shows it doesn’t even mention eResources on their home page and one has to dig four levels down to find them.  In contrast the National Library has a well developed website for eResources and the State Library of Western Australia appears to have a more developed policy and methodology for the loaning of eBooks.  Unlike their counterparts nationally and in other states there is no friendly “how to” video or tutorial on the use of eResources. 
In the discussion on Library buildings, it is important to learn from the experience of libraries further along the eResources curve, who find that some patrons visit the library less and access more remotely and that the location, nature and use of libraries has changed substantially (Zickuhr etal, 2012).  In the report, service delivery, including workforce is dealt with separately to technology, although one of the challenges lies in an ageing public library workforce, whom, one may assume are not digital natives.
Conclusion:

All three authors seem to suffer somewhat from the mindset of  “build it, and they will come”. Anderson has a useful framework that doesn’t appear to have been widely adopted.  Missingham discusses the ERA that in conjunction with the National broadband Network (NBN), will provide the physical and electronic resources for the digital economy, but doesn’t address how the human and social resources aspects will be adapted to optimize their use. The State Government of Victoria is embarking on an old fashioned and potentially extensive, expensive and long term exercise, with the risk that it is redundant before it’s finished.  This is in complete contrast to one of the key “big ideas” of Web 2.0, which is living life in a perpetual state of Beta.  Finally one has to resort to the most important question, which is whether any of these articles contribute to enhancing the operation of public services.

Reference List and Bibliography:
Anderson, P. (2007a). ‘All ThatGlisters Is Not Gold’ — Web 2.0 And The Librarian. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 39(4), 195–198.
Anderson, P. (2007b). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education. JISC Technology and Standards Watch, February 2007.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2012). 1301.0 – Year Book Australia, 2012. The National Year of Reading: Libraries Helping to make Australia a Nation of Readers. 
Berners-Lee on the read/write web.(2005). BBC. 
Black, R., & Atkinson, J. (2007). Addressing the Digital Divide in Rural Australia. Presented at the Australian World Wide Web (AusWeb) Conference, Lismore, Australia: Southern Cross University Printery.
Burke, J. J. (2009). Neal-Schuman Library Technology Companion (Third Edition.). Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.
Carlucci Thomas, L. (2010). Gone mobile? (Mobile Libraries Survey 2010). Library Journal.
Carlucci Thomas, L. (2012). The State of Mobile in Libraries 2012 – The Digital Shift. 
Digital Divide – ICT Information Communications Technology – 50×15 Initiative. (2012). Internet World Stats.
Digital Divides profile: Australia.(2012).
Dudley, E. (2009). Editorial: Lines of Communication. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 41(3), 131–134.
EBook Library (EBL): State Library of Western Australia. (2012). 
Greenhill, K. (2012). No library required: the free and easy backwaters of online content sharing. In VALA2012 CONCURRENT SESSION 11: Digitisation. Presented at the VALA2012, Melbourne, Australia.
Harradine, N. (2012). Libraries begin lending e-books to members – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
Leonard, C. (2007). Competing in a Google world. Connections. 
Miller, P. (2005). Web 2.0: Building the New Library. Ariadne: Web Magazine for Information Professionals, (45).
Miller, P. (2006). Coming Together around Library 2.0. D-Lib Magazine, 12(4).
Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Libraries. (2012). Tomorrow’s Library: Discussion Paper. State Government of Victoria.
Missingham, R. (2009). Encouragingthe digital economy and digital citizenship. Special issue on the ALIA Public Libraries Summit 2009, 58(4), 386.
Needleman, M. (2007). Web 2.0/Lib2.0—What Is It? (If It’s Anything at All). ScienceDirect.com – Serials Review, 33(3), 202–203.
Norris, P. (2012). Digital Divide: Civic Engagement,Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. Cambridge University Press.
O’Reilly, T. (2005). What Is Web2.0?  Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.  
Palmer, C. (2012). NBN pricing critical as digital divide deepens. The Conversation. 
Patty, A. (2010). City-rural divide hits computer literacy. The Sydney Morning Herald. 
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (MCB University Press), 9(5).  
Public & Indigenous Library Services State Library of Queensland. (2012). Australian Public Libraries Statistical Report 2010-2011. 
Public Libraries and ebooks -Readers – Gadgets. (n.d.).  
Richtel, M. (2012). New “Digital Divide” Seen in Wasting Time Online – NYTimes.com. 
Ewing, S. & Thomas, J. (2010). The Internet in Australia. ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. 
Travis, T. (2011). Edupunk goes mobile: Mobile library sites with zero budget « Tiffinianne’s Blog. 
Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion : rethinking the digital divide. The MIT Press.
Xu, C., Ouyang, F., & Chu, H. (2009). The Academic Library Meets Web 2.0: Applications and Implications. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35(4), 324–331. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2009.04.003
Zickuhr, K., Rainie, L., Purcell, K., Madden, M., & Brenner, J. (2012). Libraries, patrons, and e-books. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.  

All that is gold does not glitter

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.”


Events & Initiatives

As the parent of children who are growing up in a bilingual household I am passionate about languages, bilingualism and supporting mother tongue.

In February 2013, international Mother Tongue Day I organised a forum for parents to share ideas on mother tongue promotion and maintenance.  The following link will take you to a summary of the presentations, suggested readings etc.

Teaching & Learning