Approach

In Sometimes a Shining Moment: The Foxfire Experience (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985), Eliot Wigginton recalls the point in his first year of teaching when nothing was going right. He began asking his students to write about their memorable experiences—positive or negative—they had in school; Wigginton then did the same. What he found in analyzing the responses is positive events connected the classroom with the world outside, allowed students to have an audience beyond the teacher, and gave them independence to engage in complex intellectual or creative pursuits.

As a teacher, I strive to provide the library and information science students with whom I work similar positive learning experiences. For that reason, I try not to confine learning experiences to the classroom. I see value in students exploring their communities. I want them to examine institutions and services in new ways. I am not a fan of textbooks. Instead, I want students to read the “real stuff”—such as blogs, journal articles, grey literature, trade books—as mush as possible, so that they are immediately engaged in the conversations taking place in the professional community. I deplore being the only audience for student work, so as much as possible I have students create products that are addressed primarily to outside audiences.

Courses at Illinois

• In what ways do the historical conceptions of youth services librarianship and childhood/adolescence affect the profession's work today?
• How can librarians best meet the educational, informational, developmental, and/or recreational needs of young people?
• What important and relevant issues and trends affect the intersection of libraries, librarians, young people, and media?

• an understanding of the historical and theoretical foundations of youth services librarianship;
• specific knowledge, skills, and competencies needed for effective school and public youth services librarianship;
• familiarity with quality professional materials relevant to youth services librarians.

                 You can view a collaborative wiki developed by students in this class here.

This course provides students with both theoretical knowledge and practical methods which can be used by youth services librarians and other professionals working with young people and media. Media literacy builds on traditional definition of literacy that emphasize reading and writing, that is the consumption and production of printed texts. Instead of focusing exclusively on printed texts, however, media literacy explores the consumption and production of diverse methods of communication such as images, games, and music.

For much of its history, media literacy has emphasized people's consumption of mass media including newspapers, television, and film. In recent years, media literacy researchers and teachers have increasingly emphasized the production of media as well as newer forms of social and participative media such as wikis and vodcasts. This course builds on the premise that young people are competent, capable, and creative individuals. As such, the emphasis for the course is on how adults can support young people's participation in media culture, rather than on how we might protect them from it.

Topics for this course may include the role of gender, culture, ethnicity, and race in media consumption and production, media literacy as a catalyst for social change, and ethics and fair use issues related to media education. In addition, this course will address practical strategies for teaching media literacy concepts in K-12, library, and community contexts, particularly in the United States. Finally, it will provide opportunities for critical inquiry and reflection into all forms of media.

This course is designed around the following central questions:

• How do young people in the United States engage with mainstream and new media?
• How can librarians best support young people's engagement with media as well as help them become more critical participants?
• What important and relevant issues and trends affect the intersection of libraries, young people, and media?

Comics—in forms including comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, web comics, and manga—represent an increasingly important cultural medium, which appeals to persons of all ages and is collected by many school, public, and academic libraries. This course introduces students to the comics medium, its history and cultural influences. More important this course offers students the opportunity to read a variety of comics and introduces them to materials and techniques key to providing reader’s advisory in this medium. Although this course focuses on American comics, some readings and discussions will touch on this medium’s international dimensions.

Students in this course are expected to read widely and critically, write thoughtfully, and participate regularly in online sessions in order to demonstrate

• an understanding of the historical foundations, key genres, prominent creators, and important titles of the comics medium; 
  
• specific knowledge, skills, and competencies needed for effective reader's advisory with comics; and 
  
• familiarity with quality professional materials relevant to reader's advisory and collection development with comics.

A pragmatically-focused class, LIS590CL Comics in Libraries examines the particular challenges comics pose as library resources across a variety of library settings and audiences. Topics include collection management, discovery and access, description and representation, preservation, readers' services, and intellectual freedom as they pertain to comics in forms including comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and manga. 

The central questions guiding this course are

• In what ways has the relationship among libraries, librarians, and comics changed over time?
• How do different types of libraries (e.g. school, public, academic) and archives approach the collection, description, and promotion of comics in various forms?
• What are important resources, concepts, and skills for librarians working with comics in various forms?

You can view the collaborative Wiki the students created for this course during Summer 2011.

Student Supervision