21st Century Librarians Create 21st Century Libraries

Welcome! I'm so excited about our 21st century learning journey together this school year. We will be using this blog to share our thoughts and ideas related to 21st century skills and libraries. I was recently reading a blog post by Dr. Steve Matthews titled "21st Century Librarians create 21st century libraries." I think Dr. Matthews hit the nail right on the head......in order to create and transform our libraries we must understand what it means to become a 21st educator. We are just starting our journey together to understand what this looks like. Dr. Matthews posed some interesting reflection questions too about 21st century libraries:

• What does it look like?
• How is it different from yesterday's library?
• What does it offer?
• How are 21st century librarians different from and similar to yesterday’s librarians?
• What skills do 21st century librarians need?
• How do they acquire the necessary skills?

I.Jukes, T.McCAin, and L.Crockett talk about change in their book Living on the Future Edge. One thing they mentioned in their book that really stuck with me is when they said "the only way to survive the impending tempest of change is to learn the art of the chameleon: to recognize when our environment has changed and immediately make changes in our own life so that we continually blend in with the world around us." We know the students coming in the classrooms and libraries are 21st century learners, so as educators we must adapt to this change. What exactly does this mean and what can we do? Our 21st Century Skills book study will help us figure the answers out to these challenging questions.

Please practice posting to this blog by sharing your personal thoughts about change or 21st century skills. How do you envision a library in the 21st century?


Gina