| Volume 15, No. 3 | Spring 1996 |
ASDAL SIXTEENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
JUNE 30 - JULY 4, 1996
Columbia Union College, Takoma Park, Maryland
Conference Program
All sessions will be held in the Washington Adventist Hospital Conference Center, 2nd floor, unless otherwise designated. Meals will be available in the Washington Adventist Hospital Cafeteria.
Sunday, June 30
Registration: Halcyon Hall Lobby
Registration and light breakfast for school librarians pre-session
Worship: Dunbar Henri, principal, Takoma Academy
Introductions
"From Isolation to Cooperation: School Libraries in the Southeastern California Conference." Nancy Kim, Librarian, Redlands Junior Academy
"Exploring the Electronic Frontier." Gilbert Abella, Head of Public Services, La Sierra University Library
"Curriculum Connections for the Internet." Chris Cicchetti, Curriculum Librarian, La Sierra University Library
"What's all the Fuss About? A Rationale for Internet in the School Library Media Center." Paulette McLean, Periodicals Librarian, La Sierra University Library
Wrap-up Discussion
ASDAL Board
Banquet
Welcome: Adu Worku, President ASDAL
Welcome: Dr. Charles Scriven, President, Columbia Union College
Business Session I
Monday, July 1
Registration: Washington Adventist Hospital Conference Center, 2nd floor lobby
Worship: Rick Swartzwelder, Cooperative Education Department, Columbia Union College
Opening Session: Announcements: Chloe Foutz, President-Elect/Conference Chair, ASDAL; Margaret von Hake, Library Director, Columbia Union College; and Lee Marie Wisel, On-Site Coordinator
Theme Address: "Selection and Evaluation of Electronic Serials Collections." Betty Day, Humanities Bibliographer and Chair, Electronic Resources Review committee, McKeldin Library, University of Maryland at College Park
Business Session II
Breakout Sessions
Seventh-day Adventist Periodical Index Board Meeting
Committee Meetings
Tuesday, July 2, 1996
Full day tour - General Conference of SDA, National Archives II, traveling to Baltimore to Fort McHenry and a choice of the Baltimore Maritime Museum, Maryland Science Center Imax Theater and Davis Planetarium, National Aquarium in Baltimore, Top of the World on the 27 floor of the World Trade Center, U.S. Frigate Constellation, Baltimore Patriot Harbor Cruise, etc. The trip will conclude with dinner at Haussner's Restaurant
Wednesday, July 3
Worship: Debby Brown
The Adventist Resources Section, 10th Anniversary Session. Welcome and Opening Remarks, Carolyn Gaskell, Section Chair
Words of the Pioneers, Demonstration and Discussion Relating to Internet Access. Fred Bischoff presenter
Break
Automating the SDA Bibliography and the Dissertation List. Marilyn Crane, moderator
Cooperative Collection Development Policy Discussion: "Sheltering under one umbrella: Individual SDA/Heritage policies and the tiered concept." [Cooperative Collection Development Policy Discussion] Carolyn Gaskell, moderator
Lunch
Report on Breakout Sessions
Business Session III: Business related to proposed Adventist Electronic Consortium
Thursday, July 4
Worship: Barry Casey, Chair, Division of Arts and Communication, Columbia Union College
Adventist Resources Section, Business Session
"Creating a WWW Home Page." Harvey Brenneise
Business Session IV
Departure for July 4th festivities on the Mall
Preliminary ASDAL Business Agenda
By Adu Worku
In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote a best seller entitled Future Shock. In that book, Toffler wrote about an emerging technological culture bringing with it a rapid rate of change in society. He describes the technological and societal changes as both sudden and massive and warned that there would be confusion and dislocation.
In 1980, Toffler published a follow-up study in his book, The Third Wave. In this book, he outlined three major civilizations or waves in human history. The first was the Agricultural Revolution and its culture. The second was the Industrial Revolution which transformed agrarian culture fundamentally. And the third is the Information Revolution which is now transforming industrial society just as fundamentally. In The Third Wave, Toffler puts special emphasis on new technological systems, especially those in electronics.
In 1994, Toffler published yet another book entitled, Creating a New Civilization: the Politics of the Third Wave. In this book, Toffler declares that the "Third Wave information-age society" is now calling for fundamental changes in existing societal institutions. He adds, "....the Third Wave is not just a mater of technology and economics. It involves morality, culture and ideas as well as institutions and political structure. It implies, in short, a true transformation in human affairs."
As part of society, Seventh-day Adventist institutions are also undergoing fundamental changes. As Adventist librarians, we have been keenly aware of and directly impacted by the Information Revolution Toffler has eloquently described in his three books. As information professionals, we have deliberately set out to stay relevant and make a difference in this challenging new world. The Association of Seventh-day Adventist Librarians (ASDAL) embodies our collective resolve as we strive to enhance our services and create new ones. The good news is that we can now take advantage of opportunities brought by advances in electronic and telecommunication services. We can survive and thrive if we cooperate and share resources in fundamentally new ways.
Two years ago, ASDAL held its 14th annual conference at Andrews University and initiated serious discussions on the virtual SDA library. In fact, the "Virtual SDA Library" was the theme of that conference. After presentations and discussions on the subject of the virtual SDA library, the ASDAL Cooperative Information Access Committee was established as a standing committee charged with the responsibility of identifying and evaluating electronic resources and services for sharing. The committee has since been busy talking to electronic information vendors, evaluating electronic communications and databases, comparing costs of databases, and promoting consortium issues among SDA college libraries.
Until last year, ASDAL was largely a North American organization despite the fact that membership was not limited to librarians in North America. Before 1995, ASDAL annual conferences took place only in North America. However, in June of last year, ASDAL created a defining moment in its history by taking the annual conference to Newbold College in England. For the first time, there was a large contingent of international Adventist librarians representing more than 20 countries around the world. Appropriately, the conference theme last year was "The Global Electronic Village: Sharing Human and Information Resources." The presentations made and the views and desires expressed at that conference were sincere and promising. We left Newbold College with renewed commitment and determination to move forward with plans and proposals for an SDA consortium.
This year, ASDAL's conference theme is "Serials Collection Development in the Electronic Age" and it ties in very nicely with the work of the ASDAL Cooperative Information Access Committee which will soon share concrete proposals on electronic resource sharing in the context of an SDA consortium. Such proposals will focus on specific electronic indexes and fulltext databases. In other words, we are fast moving from talking to acting.
It is often the case that ideals, hopes, and missions are challenged at the level of details. Working out the details of resource sharing will be possible. But they probably will not be easy. Keith Clouten raised some of the details of consortium with SDA library directors recently and asked the following questions. Will the proposed SDA consortium be mission driven? What happens when local, state, and regional consortia provide more and better advantages and conveniences than a SDA consortium? How de we decide?
I would like to think that we will be mission driven in making decisions on resource sharing and commit human and financial resources for the common good. ASDAL's member institutions are part of the body of the Seventh-day Adventist Church which is committed to its constituencies worldwide. Technological electronic revolutions have provided us with unique opportunities to share with sister institutions and fellow believers without depriving ourselves as we share. The good news is that information is not depleted as it is used. There may be some inconvenience or perhaps even some sacrifice as we share human and information resources. Some of our institutions are better funded and administratively supported than others. If we enter into resource sharing with the attitude of what is there in it for me, we may find enough reasons to hold back. Hopefully, our commitment to Christian mission and Christian education will tip the balance in favor of an SDA library consortium. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The amount of giving is determined by the intensity of belief."
D. GLENN HILTS SCHOLARSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT
The association of Seventh-day Adventist Librarians is pleased to announce the award of the 1995 D. Glenn Hilts Scholarship for graduate study in librarianship to Mr. Bruce McClay. Mr. McClay will complete a master of library science degree in June 1996 at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The scholarship was reawarded to Mr. McClay when Mr. Vasiliy Osadchuck was called to teach at Zaokski Adventist Seminary in Russia and was therefore unable to attend library school at San Jose State University.
Mr. McClay graduated in 1968 from Columbia Union College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Religion and History. He received his Master's degree in Church History from Andrews University in 1971. Mr. McClay has taught History, English, Bible and Biology at various Seventh-day Adventist Academies since 1971, most recently at Dakota Adventist Academy is Bismarck, North Dakota.
The members of the Scholarship and Awards Committee believe that Mr. McClay meets the stated criteria in an outstanding way: excellence in scholarship, potential leadership, exemplary personal and character traits, and clear and persuasive written expression.
The Association of Seventh-day Adventist Librarians extends its congratulations and good wishes to Mr. McClay as he continues his education toward the masters degree in librarianship.
Applications for the 1996 D. Glenn Hilts Scholarship for $1,000 toward a masters in library science are being accepted now. The purpose of this scholarship is to recognize excellence in scholarship and to encourage individuals with leadership potential to enter the field of Seventh-day Adventist librarianship. Applications must be received by May 1. For more information, write: ASDAL Scholarship and Awards Committee, c/o Library, La Sierra University, Riverside, CA 92515-8247.
Active learning or activity: Theoretical distinctions in practice
By Sheila Clark
Active learning, critical thinking, cognitive strategies, inquiry, and thinking inductively are terms commonly encountered in the BI literature. From another school of thought, another cluster of words, programmed instruction, guided practice, skill-based models and worksheets emerge. In library school I noted a paucity of literature in academic librarianship discussing the theories that had generated these concepts. Specific strategies were delineated without thoughtful reference to the theories from which they sprung. Consequently, in a library school paper, I summarized broad theories or schools of thought in education and their application in the stages of intellectual development in college students. According to William Perry, the cognitive development of college students progresses through distinct stages. In the dualistic stage, descriptive of most freshmen, students believe there are right and wrong answers which can be known through authority. In the multiplistic stage, they recognize the existence of many valid responses to an issue. Students in the relativistic stage see the tentative nature of knowledge and the accompanying need to critically evaluate support for various sides of an issue (Perry cited Oberman 78-81). Behaviorist strategies promoting a skills based approach appeared to be most appropriate for freshmen in the dualist developmental stage. As they advanced to the multiplistic and relativistic stages of intellectual development, teaching methods would progress to cognitive, and eventually affective strategies.
Further reading and teaching after library school led me to question the value of behaviorist strategies in teaching dualistic learners. Students appeared to be going through the motions, exhibiting little understanding of carefully planned lectures and hands-on practice. I stopped using an assignment that guided students through the basics of using Library of Congress Subject Headings after assisting students to find material upon their completion of the worksheet. They seemed completely ignorant of the material in the assignment they had just done. They responded to gentle reminders of their freshly completed assignment with, "Oh that! We just pushed the buttons you told us to push. It didn't mean anything." Literature confirms that behavioristic strategies fail in achieving transfer of learning (Gibson, 31). Students' hostility to behaviorally based instruction is also documented (Markman and Leighton). Yet behaviorism provides the structure dualistic learners need, but structure alone is devoid of context. On the other hand, cognitivistic theories promote understanding. The dilemma was to build meaning into structure, reflection into activity.
Active learning seems to be an obvious solution, but, how is active learning defined? How does a practitioner decide whether a particular strategy, from among the plethora in the literature, is active learning, or as my LCSH worksheets, just activity? What do we expect active learning to achieve? Are we promoting active learning when our instruction is course and content specific, when students engage in hands-on practice of specific skills and concepts? As fundamental as these are to a BI program, they do not, in and of themselves, constitute active learning. The concept and attendant strategies of active learning grows out of cognitive theories. An understanding of theories in education simplifies distinguishing active learning strategies from activity.
Cognitive theories seek to explain how individuals construct meaning for themselves. Models derived from cognitive theories emphasize structures or schema in the mind into which knowledge is accommodated or assimilated into the understanding of the learner. Learning is achieved when new knowledge is assimilated into existing structures or new schema are built to accommodate it. Cognitive theories accept knowledge as "an achievement gained by the active participation of the learner" (Gibson, 30). In contrast, behaviorism sees learning as a set of concepts and facts to be mastered. Behaviorist theories maintain thinking is unobservable and therefore outside its realm of study. The theories have spawned many familiar strategies, such as my ill-fated LCSH assignment, designed to elicit efficient recall of specific facts and performance of set routines. It is the heart of the back to the basics movement in BI promoted by Cheryl Laguardia (Gibson, 30). However, strategies grounded in behaviorist theories typically fail to engage the mind of the learner. Thus, applications of behaviorist theories usually result in trained reflexes rather than critical thought.
Active learning, then, is activity in the mind. The immediate challenge is to design within the cognitive school of thought, instruction achieving the basic objectives in the three successive College Writing courses. The strategies must be structured to meet the needs of learners in the dualistic and multiplicity developmental stages while engaging them in constructing their own meaning. In a review of my college writing BI program, I designed active learning assignments growing out of cognitive theories rather than activity based behaviorist assignments. I retained the hands-on portions of the assignments, which provide the necessary structure, and built in opportunities for reflecting on the research process.
In the first course, College Writing 121, students engage in a short, highly structured activity in which they find a published diary in the library. Included in the assignment are questions requiring them to compare keyword and subject searches and to describe the process by which they selected a diary.
In the second course of the series, College Writing 122, students write a short, documented paper on a current topic. In preparation for the class discussion on library resources, they complete an assignment on their own with little guidance. They explore resources in the library using three different tools which they select from seven options and discuss which tool proved the most effective for them. The next two questions are designed to promote transfer of learning. First, students explain how exploring library resources helped them narrow their topics. Second, they list situations other than their present paper in which they would need to find information. The final and most important question on the assignment requires them to list three questions they have about using the library. Those questions become part of the next discussion in the next class period. Thus, through completing the assignment before the discussion and lecture, students have built the beginnings of a "library schema" in which to process the discussion in class.
In the final course in the sequence, College Writing 223, students write a standard research paper. They are expected to be comfortable in the multiplicity stage of intellectual development, and growing into relativism. Students in the relativistic stage are capable of weighing evidence, evaluating the credibility of various sides of an issue and realize few things can be known with full certainty. In the lecture on research strategies, they are admonished that they will need to come back to the library since research and writing are both complementary and recursive processes. Yet the nature of the assignment, a worksheet which guides them through the basic steps of the research process implies that they can find all their sources in 2-3 hours and write their paper without further investigation or study. Dividing the assignment in two sections and incorporating questions requiring students to reflect on the process, makes it more congruent with my stated purpose, teaching research as a recursive process. It also changes an assignment from requiring simply activity, albeit, the useful and necessary activity of finding sources for a paper, to active learning. Each assignment is preceded by a short lecture and discussion. In the first assignment, after finding and reading through background sources, students respond to the following:
The second part of the assignment where they utilize more sophisticated searching strategies to find the bulk of their sources, includes these considerations.
The questions are designed to make the research process more explicit. Previously I had only been describing the questions students needed to think about while gathering their sources, but there was little evidence that they actually did. Some students didn't seem to understand why they were doing the assignment and saw it as busywork.
As yet, no one doing the current form of the assignment has asked me what the assignments have to do with their paper. Other evidence of active learning is in the engagement exhibited by the students, in their responses to the reflective questions and in their conversations with me at the reference desk. Admittedly, such evidence is anecdotal. And in this instance, such results need to be submitted to the scrutiny of empirical research. However, current research supports the use of cognitively based strategies over those arising from the behaviorist school of thought.
Thus, throughout the three college writing courses, the complexity of the material, not the intensity of the engagement of the learner, needs to vary with the level of the learner. While learners in Perry's first stages of intellectual development need structure, such structure must be designed to involve students in building their own mental constructs or it degenerates into meaningless activity. An understanding of cognitive and behaviorist theories prevents practitioners from tacking the active learning label on to strategies which only merit the description of activity as opposed to active learning, those which impose structure on the student rather than encourage its meaningful, active construction. Knowledge of theory guides the intelligent selection and development of strategies. It brings organization to clusters of terms and enlightens the bag of tricks approach to teaching where some techniques work and others, for seemingly inexplicable reasons, do not.
While no single strategy always works in teaching and learning, theory guides development and selection of active learning. Designing and implementing active learning strategies are continuous, evolving processes. The results further the goals of BI and hopefully of all instruction: that of developing independent thinkers through strategies that are meaningful, purposeful and genuine.
References
Gibson, Craig. (1995). "Critical thinking: Implications for instruction." RQ, 35, 27-35
Joyce, B. and Wiel M. (1986). Models of teaching (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Simon and Schuster.
Markman, M. C. And Leighton, G. B. (1987). "Exploring freshman composition student attitudes about library instruction sessions and workbooks: Two studies." Research Strategies, 5, 126-134.
Oberman, C. and Strauch K. (Eds.). (1982). Theories of Bibliographic Education: Designs for Teaching. New York: Bowker.
Oakwood College:The crowning act of Oakwood College's Centennial Alumni Homecoming Weekend, was the unveiling of the Alabama Historical Marker. The dedication ceremony took place on Sunday, April 7, 1996 at 2:00 p.m. on the corner of Sparkman Drive & Adventist Drive, the new entrance to the campus of Oakwood College, which was founded in 1896.
Mr. Alex Luttrell, chairman of the Marker Committee of the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society explains that historical markers are placed on selected historical sites to denote early settlement, notable structures, and significant achievements. Oakwood College, along with four other Huntsville sites, was selected from a list of over 40 suggested sites in Madison County, based on age, location, accessibility to the public, national, statewide, and local significance.
Mrs. Minneola Dixon, Oakwood College Archivist, was asked to join the marker committee in September, 1995 and led the task of researching the college's history and writing the text for the marker. This special task force researched land transaction records, probate court orders, and church and school documents to glean historical information which would confirm that the marker text is historically accurate.
When the approval of the text was given by the Alabama Historical Association in Montgomery and the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society, the marker was ordered, installed, and unveiled at the special ceremony on Sunday, April 7.
The marker is a handsome 3.5' x 4' metal marker mounted on a 4' alucrete post, the face of which
is painted navy blue with silver trim and gold lettering. The Alabama State flag is engraved at the
top of the marker.
(Submitted by M. Dixon)
Congrats to Annette Melgosa, of the Newbold College Library for producing the first issue of a newsletter that will represent the European chapter of ASDAL. The newsletter was published in Fall 1995 and sent to 21 Adventist educational institutions in Europe. We wish for them success in their new beginning.
"I was taking my kids home one afternoon and suggested that we make a quick stop at the Berrien Springs Community Library to see if they had a book that Laurie had been wanting to read (Science Fiction). She said, 'Oh, we don't have to stop and check, we can check on the Internet when we get home.' When I explained that the public library's books can't be searched by modem she replied, 'I know that. I meant the King James Library.'"
"King James, James White--whatever the name--kids certainly have a jump on us on computer
technology."
(Submitted by Linda Mack)
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ASDAL OFFICERS, 1995-1996 President: Adu Worku, PUC President-elect: Chloe Foutz, UC Past President: Harvey Brenneise, AU Secretary: James Walker, LSU Treasurer: Lee Marie Wisel, CUC ASDAL Action Editor: Violet Maynard-Reid, WWC For membership and other general information, write: ASDAL, Columbia Union College Library, 7600 Flower Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912. |
ASDAL ACTION Editor: Violet Maynard-Reid ASDAL Action is the newsletter of the Association of Seventh-day Adventist Librarians. It is published three times per year: Fall, Winter, and Spring, and is issued to its members free. The purpose of ASDAL ACTION is to keep the membership of the association abreast of events, ideas, and trends related to Adventist Librarianship. All communication and articles are welcome. Address Correspondence:
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