Metro-Atlanta Library Association's Summer Meeting Summary

How Do You Spell COLLABORATE?

Presenter: Dr. Juanita Buddy, Coordinator, Department of Educational Media,
DeKalb County School System

Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 6:00pm

Dr. Juanita Buddy is a coordinator in the Department of Educational Media for the DeKalb County School System. As a library professional, her experiences include employment as a school library media specialist, reference librarian at Georgia Perimeter College, and adjunct professor at Georgia State University (GSU) in the graduate Library Media Technology Program. As her dissertation topic, she conducted research relating to the adoption of GALILEO, the statewide virtual library, by high school library media specialists. At our meeting on August 22, 2007, Dr. Buddy addressed MALA members and friends and led a lively discussion on the meaning of “Collaboration” in library and educational settings.

Dr. Buddy shared some formal definitions of the term "collaboration" and asked the group to contribute their definitions and some of their own experiences that might exemplify the concept. Some examples mentioned and discussed included the physical designs of library space, such as the contemporary library design in the GSU Learning Commons, the importance of delivering library services to a growing culturally diversity population in metro-Atlanta, GALILEO and other databases available to K-12 and post-secondary students that support lifelong learning, and the growing impact of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 in the access of information and users’ involvement in sharing information.

Dr. Buddy described an information literacy project sponsored by NCREL (www.ncrel.org) called “Literacy for the 21st Century”, with broad-reaching goals of encompassing basic literacy through global awareness, and including scientific, economic, technological, visual, information, and multicultural literacy. She shared information about the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl (HRRB), a voluntary program involving students in elementary and middle school reading the annual Georgia Children's Book Award Nominees, and high school students reading the Georgia Peach Teen Book Award Nominees selected by school and public librarians. Beginning as a grassroots initiative in the DeKalb County School System in the 1990s by Mrs. Helen Ruffin, a school library media specialist, the HRRB is currently a statewide program, which involved 97 teams at the state level in 2007. More information is available about the HRRB at http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/hrrb/.

Dr. Buddy’s colorful, upbeat and vitalizing presentation painted “COLLABORATION” as an acrostic. She illustrated each letter of the word with real-life, constructive examples demonstrating the essence of the word – to coordinate, cooperate, communicate.

Dr. Buddy offered the following contributors as her answer to the question, “How Do We Spell COLLABORATE?”

Cultural diversity
Online resources
Literacy in the 21st century
Library 2.0
Academic achievement in K-12 schools
Blueprint for Collaboration
Opportunities for professional development
Reading
Advocacy
Technology
Extensions
!

Thank you, Dr. Buddy, for a stimulating and inspiring evening!