Notes on Services to Seniors from a LIbrary Information Conference in San Diego

I am writing this from a boat in San Diego where we are about to have a presentation on Discovering Buried Treasure: Teaching Strategies for the Aging Population led by Juliet Kerico and Susan Frey from Indiana State University. This is part of the LOEX Conference for instructional librarians. Earlier today I attended a workshop on using podcasting and videocasting to introduce people to the resources of the library.

I figure between these two sessions, I will have lots to say about how the Salado Public Library can expand its services and the ability of teens and our senior population to tap into those resources. I know that there are resources housed in the Salado library that the public does not know about or do not fully know how to use. I also know that a number of interest areas, such as basic computer skills, could be augmented through innovative instruction and broader use of technology.

The Discovering Buried Treasure presentation was led by two instructional librarians from Indiana State University. The reference library department started a program teaching seniors, but learned lessons that they are applying to their library instruction courses on campus. ISU embarked on this project with senior citizens because it has a strong community engagement component - even to the point of expecting that the work of the university will benefit the local community. The library conducts programs for the community, provides a neutral space for community conversations, and other seminars on an almost weekly basis and has received a Carnegie classification as Curricular Engagement and Outreach category. One outreach effort to the senior community was the Dewey Institute, which teaches information literacy to seniors and eventually led ISU to offer programming at the Westminster Village Retirement Community in Terra Haute called, Bits and Bytes.

The focus on the Bits and Bytes was issue-based rather than skills-based. For example, the participants might use the internet to learn about medicare, health issues, or privacy. The format initially started with a 30 minute traditional lecture with power point slides printed out as handouts, followed by a trip to the lab. The structured series did not seem to work well because the participants were frequently interrupting to ask specific questions moving ahead of the steps, talking off topic (as the presenter noted, "chaos ensued"), while the lecture was very low-keyed and less interactive. To address why this was occurring and why it seemed to bother the course leaders, but not the participants, the ISU librarians used Martinez's Learning Styles which documents four learning styles:

• Performers: persistent, impatient to perform, want to do well, willing to challenge the methodology.
• Conformers: want routine, will wait until shown next step
• Transformers: highly motivated, want to learn, willing to challenge relevancy, not interested in the grade.
• Resisters: extremely intelligent, but not interested in classroom work.

What ISU learned is that the elders they were working with are primarily Performers and Transformers, the two categories most willing to challenge. This required the instructors to change their perspective and approach. There was a mismatch between the teaching style and the learning style or learner preferences. The changes they made:

• Eliminate lecture
• Introduce a theme and have a lesson plan, BUT
• The class owns the lesson and the instructors will go with the flow

What was fascinating is how these library instructors used what they learned from the senior classes in their own classes with university students. For example, they began encouraging storytelling to help make a connection between what students were learning and their own experiences. One tool they used was to engage the students in collaborating in creating a fictitious student who needs research assistance. That becomes the starting point for learning. In this way, the on-campus class owns the learning.

Not surprising, these innovative instructors saw the opportunity to draw in student volunteers into their work with the seniors. The Westminster site is now a field site for professors and students.

I am excited about applying some of the lessons learned by these two library instructors in the Salado Public Library. I will encourage our librarians and community volunteers to lead issue-based computer workshops for our seniors and will be standing by to offer advice based on what I have learned from this presentation. Obviously we will need to be sensitive to the learning styles of seniors and how we may need to adapt our own preferences. We will also need to find out what seniors are interested in learning - genealogy, privacy and identity theft, online banking, evaluating online resources.