Teaming with Opportunity: Media Programs, Community Constituencies, and Technology

Citation

Holland, M. (2002), "Teaming with Opportunity: Media Programs, Community Constituencies, and Technology", The Electronic Library, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp. 431-432. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2002.20.5.431.6

Lesley S.J. Farmer writes from her experience of high schools in the USA. Farmer’s language and terminology are somewhat alien to this reviewer, working in higher education in the UK, though surprisingly the central message of the book of libraries and librarians forming collaborations and partnerships is not. Partnerships and collaborations permeate education in the UK driven by government funding requiring cross‐sectoral partnerships and the participation of more than one partner in every funded project. The subject was most recently treated in the context of higher education in a collection of papers from a conference reporting the experience in US higher education of library‐academic partnerships, Library User Education: Powerful Learning, Powerful Partnerships (Dewey, 2001). For Farmer, partnerships inform all aspects of library work, including teaching information skills and support for teaching. Teaming with Opportunity is, however, a “how to” book written for practitioners explaining how partnerships and collaborations work, how to initiate and sustain them and who the key stakeholders are from the standpoint of the school or media centre librarian.

Teaming with Opportunity begins by linking information literacy, the librarian and activities within the classroom that give information literacy concrete reality. Farmer is skilled in giving practical examples for implementing strategic choices. For example, focusing on a nine‐point standard for information literacy developed by the American Association of School Librarians and Association for Communications Technology, taking each point and expressing it as a series of classroom activities. To give a flavour, Point 4 requires that students pursue information related to personal interests – the activity suggested is to “comparison shop” online, develop monthly budgets based on local information, create a database of local teenager‐volunteer opportunities. It is these activities and the equipment that might support them that are the focus for partnership building. Successive chapters deal with the role of technology, its benefits and limitations and the nature of groups and partnerships. The remaining chapters look at each partner, for example, Internal Partnerships, Business and Government Agencies, illustrating each with project ideas, cases studies and practical advice on how to approach partners and their expectations and aspirations. The final chapter looks at management, evaluation assessment and redirection of partnership projects.

It would be hard to recommend this book to anyone not working in US high school education. It is possible, however, to take several lessons from Teaming with Opportunity which give pause for thought. The first is that strategic choices need to be capable of being expressed in practical outcomes. Choosing a definition of information literacy from the several that are beginning to emerge in higher education is a strategic choice. Expressing it in terms of what to do in the workshop, lecture theatre, or in collaborating with academics, is more challenging and often the ignored next step, even though it is this that generates outcomes capable of evaluation and reflection on practice. Passivity is not an option. Being proactive in forming partnerships, guided by the right analysis of the environment brings rewards and recognition. Perhaps there is an opportunity for such a guide in higher education too!