My Final LIBE 465 Project: École Davis Road Learning Commons

“You have been tasked by your school to create a brand new school library, with autonomy to select books, multimedia, and other resources you deem appropriate for this collection”

This final LIBE 465 assignment has provided an ideal opportunity for me to dream big. With such an expansive mandate, I felt free extend myself “beyond the four walls” (Kirkland, p. 1) of my library’s physical space and to create a “blended” learning commons environment. I use the term “blended” because, while I support Loertscher’s (2008) vision of the learning commons as a “warehouse” (as cited in Kirkland p. 1) of digital materials, I believe strongly that a well-maintained collection of physical resources is essential in any school environment.

As proud as I am of the École Davis Road library, it provides little visual fodder for such a bold undertaking, so I sought inspiration on the internet. I spent considerable time browsing images of learning commons and happened upon a photo that really sparked my imagination. It was a picture of the Douglasdale School Learning Commons in Calgary. In 2012, Douglasdale School received funding from the EducationMatters organization to undertake a huge transformation of their library. The resulting physical space is amazing and it is this facility that I have “hijacked” for the purposes of my assignment. For all other school details, I continue to use my own school, École Davis Road Elementary.

According to Joyce Valenza,” the 21st century virtual school library will have as broad an influence as its physical counterpart” (as cited in Kirkland, p. 2) With such a state-of-the art facility, I expected the Douglasdale library to a have a cutting edge, learning commons-style website. Shockingly, it took extensive digging to even find a library catalogue! I have included the school website here for your perusal: http://schools.cbe.ab.ca/b346/

“The virtual learning commons, according to Loertscher, is both a giant ongoing conversation and a warehouse of digital materials – from ebooks to databases to student-generated content – all available 24/7 year-round” (Kirkland, p. 1). My final project endeavours to embody Loertscher’s learning commons principles and to meld these with my own conviction that, in a school setting, physical resources still have a critical role to play. With this perspective in mind, I have created the type of website I feel the Douglasdale School library should have launched when they opened their brand new facility.

Before embarking on my web design, I spent some time reviewing the principles of good information architecture (IA) that were discussed in Lesson 7. As Dr. Cho states, “the success of IA is almost like telling a grand narrative story”. In order to work through the key elements of “website flattening” (Lesson 7), labelling, and navigation; I created a taxonomy similar to that in Assignment # 3. Here is the result:

You will note that my model does not itemize the individual teacher pathfinders. This is for the simple reason that, at this point, I had not yet determined what these pathfinders would be. I feel this taxonomy represents good “storytelling” (Lesson 7) for a number of reasons:

1. There is minimal click-depth to prevent confusion.

2. Navigation is intuitive and labelling is clear.

3. Linkages have an obvious hierarchy from broad keywords to more narrow ones.

I pondered for some time whether to put Research Tools, Web2.0 Cool Tools, Pathfinders, and Dewey for Kids on Level 1 of my site. Ultimately, I decided it was more logical to group these under Do Research. To ensure clarity however, I created a site map with direct links to these pages.

In order to assess the “usability” of the EDR Learning Commons site, I subsequently tested it out on anyone I could corral into the office: my husband, my daughter, my father etc. Even my Dad, who is 82 years old, seemed to find the site quite intuitive and straight-forward!

Now is probably an appropriate time to address one very frustrating technical difficulty I encountered while creating my website on Wikispaces. When I first established the site, I was waffling between calling it a Library Media Centre and a Learning Commons. This dilemma stems from my above-mentioned “blended” vision of virtual and physical spaces. Initially, I wondered whether such a vision entitled me to call my website a learning commons. Further research, however, reinforced that many learning commons environments, particularly those in elementary schools, embody a similar philosophy. This point is underscored by Kirkland when she quotes Janes (2008): “In an increasingly digital world, the idea of the library has to be somewhere and everywhere: real, physical locations as well as ubiquitous access. Neither alone will suffice in meeting the varied and expanding needs of our communities, and neither alone expresses the true nature and usefulness of what a ‘library’ is and can be (and ought to be and has to be ) in the 21st century “ (as cited in Kirkland, p. 4). Unfortunately, when I originally created my website I called it the Davis Road Library Media Centre and Wikispaces does not take kindly to those who change their minds! Sadly, I can change the name but I need to wait 15 days to do so. For this reason, you will notice that, while the official name of my site is Davis Road Library Media Centre, I refer to it in all other contexts as the École Davis Road Learning Commons. Similarly, there are a number of webpages that have incorrect headings, as these are the titles I started with, and Wikispaces will not allow for revision. The correct terminology is that used on the navigation bar.

I would now like to use this navigation bar as a jumping off point as I continue with my reflection.

I feel the Welcome to the École Davis Road Learning Commons and the Meet the Learning Commons Staff pages are fairly self-explanatory and their creation did not present any real dilemmas for me. For this reason, they will not be discussed further.

I would like to address the Find Resources page, however. I initially named this page Find Books but later felt this label did not sufficiently represent the variety of resources I envision in the EDR Learning Commons. Many of these are highlighted on the Find Resources page.

I chose to use Destiny Quest by Follet in my fantasy learning commons because, from what I was able to determine, it most fully meets the needs of our 21st century learners. The interface is visually appealing and seems easy to navigate. In addition, it incorporates many desirable features including peer reviews and “if you like this book” recommendations. Most importantly perhaps, it provides students a virtual space in which to interact and share their reading choices.

You will notice that Find Resources also provides external links to an array of open access and subscription resources. Whenever possible, I have created real-world links. For sites requiring subscription, I am making the assumption that the EDR Learning Commons will have funds allocated for the necessary expansion of resource options. Because I have provided so many links on this and other pages, I cannot possibly justify each one within the parameters of this assignment. This said, all choices were made thoughtfully and after considerable research. I will be highlighting specific links when I feel they warrant more in-depth reflection. One such site is TumbleBook Library. École Davis Road had a paid subscription to this site for a number of years. The big benefit of TumbleBook Library for the EDR Learning Commons is that it includes titles in both French and English. For this reason, I have included it under both French and English E-book categories.

Do Research is the most complex page on my site as it provides access to Level 2 and Level 3 pages. I felt it important to use this page, not only as a springboard to other pages, but also as an expression of the research philosophy of my learning commons and school. The philosophy statement is inspired by Guided Inquiry Learning in the 21st Century and the authors are credited accordingly. I have also included The Inquiry Process model here to inform and guide students and teachers during research.

The first link from Do Research is Research Tools. While the creation of this page was extremely time consuming, I had a blast! I had no idea there were so many amazing research tools! You will notice that I have included Web 2.0 Cool Tools for School under Technology Tools on this page and I have also dedicated a separate page to it. This is to underscore the importance of using Technology Tools not just because they’re “cool”, but to help support the research process. I really appreciate this site because it organizes tools into categories and provides descriptions for each. As Kirkland says, “the messy business of learning requires some well-designed and thoughtful scaffolding” (p. 3) and I believe Cool Tools does this very well.

A particularly time consuming task in the design of the Research Tools page was to track down appropriate research support for French Immersion students. . To do this, I relied somewhat on my own experience, but I also combed through many library websites in hopes of finding their French research “gems”. Perhaps most fun for me was the discovery of GlogsterEdu. I first came across it on the Barrow Media Center website . According to Wikipedia, “Glogster is a social network that allows users to create free interactive posters… It looks like a poster, but readers can interact with the content”. At first I thought the amazing Teacher-Librarian at Barrows had creating the Glogs himself. I then realized Glogs can be shared and embedded into external wikis and blogs. It was very exciting to make this discovery and to include three research related Glogs on my site.

I have already addressed Web 2.0 Cool Tools and so would now like to tackle my Pathfinders page. We discussed pathfinders in Lesson 9 and I feel they still have a vital role to play in organizing what Kirkland refers to as the “chaos” (p. 3) of web research. Dr. Cho describes pathfinders as bibliographies “created to help research a particular topic” (Lesson 9). He states that “pathfinders have evolved with the emergence of the World Wide Web and may now act as portals to information about resources in a variety of formats including books, encyclopaedias, bibliographic databases, almanacs, documentaries, websites, search engines and journals. Often used as curriculum tools for bibliographic instruction, the guides help library users find materials or help those unfamiliar with a discipline understand the key sources” (Lesson 9).

In order to create the Pathfinders page, the reviewed curricular topics in Science and Social Studies for each grade level. I then imagined working collaboratively with classroom teachers to help design pathfinders for a variety of curricular topics. While this page is currently a “dead end”, I envision it to have a third level of portals linked to a rich array of resources.

I would now like to discuss the last of the Do Research pages, Dewey For Kids. In keeping with my vision of a “blended” learning commons containing both physical and virtual resources, I felt it important not to forget about poor Melvil Dewey. In my experience, students really struggle with the Dewey Decimal System when seeking physical resources to support their research. My goal, therefore, was to create a page that would make Dewey more interesting and accessible to students, while providing an opportunity for them to hone their Dewey search skills. I was particularly excited to find the “Bob the Alien” and “Dewey Decimal Rap” videos, as they are both entertaining and informative. In addition, when students click on the “Dewey Decimal Review” icon, they can access additional information, practice sites, and games.

In a rapidly expanding digital world, we have fallen alarmingly behind in teaching the values of online citizenship to our students. As a result, many children and youth are ill-equipped to manage the realities of virtual interaction. The dual purpose of my Digital Citizenship page is to express the school’s philosophy on this issue and to promote digital literacy in its many forms. I spent considerable time searching for the many age-appropriate videos and resources on topics of internet safety, privacy, “netiquette”, cyber-bullying, and intellectual property, which are included on this page.

According to Kirkland, “the concepts of interactivity and collaboration are fundamental to the notion of the library as a learning commons” (p. 1). I agree with this vision and wanted to ensure that my site incorporated opportunities for knowledge sharing as well as information seeking. I created a Sharing our Success page in order to provide ongoing opportunities for students to engage in “giant, ongoing conversations” (Loertscher as cited in Kirkland, p. 1) about their learning and to include the greater community in their educational experiences. My image for this page would involve each class having its own blog where students could “explore, create and collaborate” with each other and with a larger audience.

In his article on site map usability, Jakob Nielsen (2008) highlights a major benefit of the site map: “to give users an overview of the site’s areas in a single glance” (p. 1). He further states that, “If designed well, this overview can include several levels of hierarchy, and yet not be so big that users lose their grasp of the map as a whole” (Nielsen, 2008, p.1). Although I feel my navigation menu is fairly transparent, I have chosen to include a site map to further enhance the ability of users to visualize my website’s information architecture.

I must end my final project reflection on a very personal and “real world” note. Staff in our district was informed yesterday that the School Board will decide Tuesday whether to eliminate secondary school Teacher-Librarians and replace them with clerical Library Assistants. This cost saving proposal is linked directly to the board’s new-found strategy to move “towards a library commons model and electronic access to our libraries” (School District #68 Nanaimo/Ladysmith, 2014). The fact that the district is even considering a “library commons model” without the stewardship of qualified Teacher-Librarians reflects its profound misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of the learning commons itself. Who will provide the “well designed and thoughtful scaffolding” (p. 3) that Kirkland speaks of when all Teacher-Librarians have been eliminated in favour of unqualified clerical staff? I am very grateful to have taken LIBE 465 during this very crucial juncture in the “life” of my school district. While I am saddened to find myself fighting for the very existence of Teacher-Librarians in Nanaimo/Ladysmith, I do so bolstered with a greater understanding of the critical role we must play in building order within the “chaos” (Kirkland, p. 3) of virtual space by creating “powerful, meaningful and useful” (Kirkland, p. 6) learning commons environments for our educational communities. If we don’t do it, who will?

Reference List

Glogster (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org

Kirkland, A.B. School Library Websites: The Bricks and Mortar of the Virtual Library Space. Retrieved from http://www.bythebrooks.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TMC2012_Paper_ABK.pdf

Nielsen, J. (2008). Site Map Usability. Retrieved from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/site-map-usability/

School District #68 Nanaimo/Ladysmith (2014). Retrieved from http://www.sd68.bc.ca/Documents/2014-15%20Budget/ImpactStatements.pdf.

A Taxonomy for North Oyster Elementary: Journal Reflection Activity #3

For this assignment, I have chosen to create a taxonomy of the North Oyster Elementary website. I made this choice for very practical reasons. Our community was given word just over two weeks ago that our school, École Davis Road Elementary, is being permanently closed in June 2014. The French Immersion program will be relocated in its entirety to North Oyster Elementary, a currently under-subscribed rural school situated just north of Ladysmith. I am hoping to move, along with the rest of my French Immersion “family”, into this new home. In the spirit of “killing two birds with one stone”, it seemed appropriate to make the North Oyster Elementary website the focus of my LIBE 465 assignment. I was particularly curious to see how effectively the library and its various programs are currently represented on the school website. Using Figure 2 in Lesson 7 as my model, here is the taxonomy I created for the North Oyster Elementary school website:

Before beginning my analysis of the North Oyster Elementary (NOE) taxonomy, I find it necessary to state that this site follows a very similar organizational structure to that of many schools in our district. The basic architecture was created by the District #68 Senior Library Technician, with schools subsequently having the opportunity to enrich and modify their webpages based upon individual need and initiative. There are advantages and disadvantages to such an approach. A primary advantage is underscored by Faulkner and Hayton in their article “When Left Might Not Be Right”. They discuss the benefits of using a design a user already knows: “if a site follows the conventions of every other site then it is easier to use because the user knows exactly what to expect”. In the case of the NOE website, a serious drawback is that certain school-specific information gets buried too deeply within its hierarchy. I will clarify this particular shortcoming when I get into the “nitty gritty” of my description of the NOE architectural structure. Generally speaking, the navigation menu located at the top of the NOE homepage is clear and provides a reasonable starting point for site exploration. It is suggested in Lesson 7 that “good, clean pages are no more than three levels deep”. As the above taxonomy shows, his benchmark for “good storytelling” is met in the Our School, Parents, and Staff pages. The Students page, however, is very problematic. At first glance, navigation is quite straightforward. On the second level of the Students page, users are directed either to an Information for Students or to a Resources for Students link. A click here connects users to architectural level three, where links to 33 different “approved websites for student use” are displayed. “Minimal click-depth “(Lesson 7) is therefore well respected, that is until we reach the 33rd and last student resource label. Unfortunately, this obscure link provides the only connection to the North Oyster Library webpage. I consider this a tragic flaw in the NOE architectural structure. One must seriously question how many students would actually have the tenacity to navigate through three webpage levels, and read to the very bottom of a 33 item list in search of a library link. To complicate matters further, this lengthy resource list is not even organized alphabetically. Regrettably, the North Oyster Elementary site’s navigational challenges are not limited to “click depth”. Lesson 7 highlights effective “cross content linking” as a vital element of successful web design. As I attempted to maneuver through the NOE site, I experienced a severe lack of these crucial internal links. Nowhere was this more prevalent than within the library webpages. As a user, it was my expectation that once I chose to access the library webpage, I would be able “make myself comfortable” and browse different areas of interest. Unfortunately, none of the library pages were internally linked. For example, when I clicked on the North Oyster Library Staff Room and opted to peruse New Professional Titles, this is what I saw:

Perusing completed, my instinct was to click on the “Go Back” link located in the top left hand corner of the page. It seemed reasonable that this navigation label would take me back to my point of entry, where I could continue browsing. Frustratingly, the “Go Back” link did nothing at all. Eventually, I realized the only way to continue library exploration was to return to Resources for Students, scroll down to the 33rd item, and re-click on North Oyster Library. Despite my initial motivation, it didn’t take long to conclude that the information was not worth this cumbersome and time-consuming navigational process. When faced with this absence of internal links, I can only imagine how quickly students would similarly lose interest and attention. The North Oyster Elementary website is based essentially on a pure hierarchy. In their book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld describe a pure or “strict” hierarchy as one in which “each term appears in one and only one place”. On the NOE site, only the District Resource Centre and SD#68 Home Page labels show up twice. According to Morville and Rosenfeld, “polyhierarchy”, where certain terms are “cross-listed in multiple categories”, is a common evolution from pure hierarchy. I feel the needs of NOE site users would be better met with a greater degree of “polyheirarchy”. Currently, the only link to the Library’s teacher Staff Room is found by clicking on the North Oyster Library link, which resides exclusively in Resources for Students. I think we can agree that this is not the most logical placement. At the very least, this same information should also be available within Resources for Staff. Such a “polyheirarchical” approach would not solve all this website’s problems, but it would at least provide teachers more direct access to library information from the NOE homepage. The fundamentally “pure” hierarchical structure of the North Oyster Elementary website is reflected in the following sitemap:

I appreciate the opportunity this LIBE 465 assignment has given me to put the North Oyster Elementary website “under the microscope”. Not only do I have a better understanding of the myriad of issues surrounding information architecture in general, I also have a great starting point for specific improvements which could significantly enhance the experience of users visiting this site. These modifications will definitely be on my “To Do” list for next year!

Trying to make sense of FRBR: Journal Reflection Activity #2

In choosing my topic for this journal reflection assignment, I knew I could spend numerous hours mulling over possible options. Which work would provide enough but not too many manifestations? Which work would provide ideal fodder for “broad and deep” (Cho) reflections? Instead of agonizing, I decided to “throw my fate to the wind” and see what could be found on my personal bookshelf. It was as though she had been waiting patiently for her opportunity to shine: Anne of Green Gables; how perfect! While I’m not a L.M. Montgomery expert, I know there is an entire Anne novel series, in addition to a T.V. program, and at least one movie representation of the original work. My primary concern was whether my somewhat shaky understanding of FRBR (Function Requirements for Bibliographic Records) would be enough to support this task. In an effort to shore up my FRBR understanding, I reviewed Figures 2 and 3 from our third lesson. I then decided to follow Allan’s advice and read the two blog posts by Coyle and Styles. I’m sorry but Styles’ post most certainly did not bring FRBR “down to earth" (Styles) for me. In fact, his diagrams just about did me in! I will comment further on my queries regarding Styles’ position later in this post. At this point, it’s probably best to move into the “nitty gritty” of my model creation. Challenge #1: Where to find the myriad of manifestations I knew must exist for the work Anne of Green Gables? I opted to check out the Vancouver Island Regional Library. Here I found a whopping total of 41 titles under the Anne of Green Gables keyword search. With this result, it was clear that my FRBR model would not be comprehensive. In the following diagram, you will find a somewhat representative selection of several manifestations of Anne of Green Gables from the VIRL holdings:

FRBR Diagram Key: Work=Pink Expression=Yellow Manifestation=Green Item=Blue Challenge #2: Once I had sketched out my diagram on paper, how was I going to transfer this visual representation into my blog? After doing a bit of research, I decided to try my hand at MS Paint, as it seemed one of the simpler options. What you see above is my first Paint generated model diagram. It's not perfect because space restrictions prohibited me from "lining up" all the manifestations and items, as had been done in Figures 2 and 3. Despite its limitations, I'm quite pleased with the clarity of the result. I must say it took forever! Now that I've addressed the technicalities, I'd like to discuss a number of challenges I faced while building this model. Challenge #3: How could I accurately determine which expression a particular manifestation fell under? For example, when I first created this diagram, I had linked The Anne of Green Gables 2007 Storybook (Firefly Books) to the Printed Book expression. When I had a closer look at the VIRL record description, however, I questioned my decision. The description states: "The Anne of Green Gables Storybook is a special book adaptation of Montgomery's original novel. Based on the Sullivan film production, it is illustrated with 76 delightful full-color photographs from the television series. This briefer version has the complete Anne of Green Gables story line in simple language for younger readers." Yes, it is based upon the Printed Book, so I don't think it would have been an error to place it there. This said, the text is greatly simplified and there are 76 pictures that link it to the T.V. series. From a child's perspective, I'm guessing they would connect this Storybook more to the T.V. series than to the Printed Book. For this reason, I placed this manifestation under T.V. series. Arguably, this is a purely subjective decision and reasons to opt for the Printed Book scenario are equally compelling. Another example of this challenge can be found in the manifestation 101 Things You Didn't Know. Based solely on the VIRL record description, I was unable to accurately determine the nature of 101 Things. After expanding my research to Amazon, I understood that this manifestation is actually "a light-hearted look of on stage, off stage and backstage" of the musical Anne of Green Gables. With this added information, I was able to confidently make 101 Things You Didn't Know a manifestation of the expression Musical. Based upon this one diagramming experience, I can only imagine the complexity and nuance of the RDA cataloguing process. This point brings me face-to-face with the challenges I would anticipate in using FRBR as a model for organizing school library resources. FRBR, and therefore RDA, is not simply an itemization of titles that might be found in a school library, but rather a reflection of the relationships between titles. I understand the RDA model might be helpful to "clarify the cataloging rules and concepts associated with a new group of library resources" (Cho), but wonder if we're not biting off a little more than we can chew here. I know that, as Teacher-Librarians, we won't be asked to create or modify RDA-style records, but as Allan states, T-Ls must certainly be conversant with "RDA concepts and terminologies". It is with FRBR "terminologies" (Cho) that I take issue. Here, I must agree with Rob Styles in his blog post: "Nobody talks about works, expressions and manifestations, so why describe our data that way?" Like Styles, I found FRBR to be "difficult to work with" (Styles). As I created my diagram, I was continually going back to Lesson 3 in an effort to internalize the concepts. This tells me that the terms are not particularly transparent. Styles recommends using "less abstract terms" (Styles) and I would agree. While I don't profess to have understood any of Styles' diagrams, I did appreciate his use of more "real-life" (Styles) terms such as Movie, Novel, and DVD. As American folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger says, “Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.” When it comes to catologuing, I'm wondering if we shouldn't heed Pete's advice.

Creating a MARC record: Journal reflection Activity #1

For our first LIBE 465 assignment, I decided to create a MARC record for the book Allegiant by Veronica Roth. Allegiant is volume 3 in the very popular Divergent series and I had just purchased it for my library. The following is the result of me trying my hand at being a library catologuer. My reflections on this extremely time-consuming and often perplexing activity will follow.

When comparing my neophyte MARC record with the Library of Congress version, I realize that, ultimately, I was able to negotiate my way through most of the cataloging steps fairly well. The process, however, required nothing short of learning a new language! Initially, I found the jargon to be completely overwhelming. Terms such as "indicator", "non-filing character", and "subfield", to name just a few, have such specific meanings and their use is governed by a set of seemingly endless cataloguing rules and procedures. After my initial panic, it seemed the only way to achieve success was to take it "one field at a time". The concept of "indicators" tripped me up for a bit until I realized that an indicator's meaning changes depending on the field in which it is used. I also spent considerable time deciphering the counting of nonfiling characters. While my title Allegiant is very straight forward in this regard, counting nonfiling characters is critical when cataloguing many French titles, such as "L'Ile Noire" for example. The Physical Description field, while seemingly straightforward, also necessitated additional investigation. I wasn't absolutely sure whether to measure the height or the width of my book. After googling "how to measure dimension for a MARC record", the Southern Methodist University confirmed my suspicion that height was the critical element. Because Allegiant is part of a series, the 490 tag needed to be part of my MARC record. It was difficult to determine how a cataloguer would know if a title was part of a series, as such information does not appear on the copyright page. Does the cataloguer need to sleuth through the book jacket synopsis for this information or do they research outside sources? While each of these issues presented challenges, I found the 650 tag to be the most perplexing. Luckily, I was not alone in my confusion and was able to "compare notes" with Emily using the Q & A page. Eventually, I found my way to several very helpful documents on the Library of Congress website. I'm including the link here for those who may find it useful: http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCSH/freelcsh.html#Introduction I found both the introductions to Subject Headings and to Children's Subject Headings on this site very helpful. In addition, PDF lists for both are provided. I was absolutely shocked to discover just how many subject headings there are! The challenge was, of course, to determine which headings to choose. While I have not read Allegiant, I have read the first book in this series, Divergent. For this reason, I had some idea which subject headings might be most appropriate. Cataloguers cannot possibly read all the books they catalogue. The question therefore becomes, how to they know which headings to select? Do they determine subject headings using the book jacket synopsis, as this does not describe all the elements? Do they read reviews? Is there another source for such information? For my MARC record, I would have preferred to use the Children's Subject Headings list but I could not find reference to subjects such as Dystopias, Social Classes or Science Fiction. This is where my record falls short of the Library of Congress version, as I used regular Subject Headings exclusively. As far as I can determine, a cataloguer would need to have certain subject headings in mind and simply use the lists for formatting reference. To illustrate, each letter of the alphabet has a Subject Heading list. The subject heading Dystopias is found on page 293 of the 295 page D list. "Browsing" for subject headings is simply not an option! Upon completing this assignment, I feel I have merely brushed the surface of the complexities of creating a MARC record. Much more research and practice would be needed to fully grasp the plethora of rules and procedures required to become a competent cataloguer. This said, I feel that being at least conversant with record creation will be of great benefit to me in my role as teacher-librarian. Such understanding is becoming increasingly critical in light of the seemingly continuous erosion of district cataloguing support.