ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 2 9 6 / C & R L N e w s ■ M arch 2001 COM M UNITY & COLLABORATIO N Under construction The California Heritage Project’s K-12 outreach experience at the University of California, Berkeley by Lisa Yesson and Lynn Jones M odel: 1) a set o f p la n s f o r a bu ildin g; 2 ) copy, im ag e; 3 ) stru ctu ral design ; 4 ) a usually m in ia tu re represen tation o f som ethin g; 5 ) a n ex a m p le f o r im itation o r em u lation . . . 1 T his is just an excerpt of Webster’s entry for the word m odel. In a perfect world, a successful community outreach project cou be easily replicated with a “set of plans” or “structural design.” However, the University o f California (UC) Berkeley Library’s experi­ ence with K -12 outreach suggests that mod­ els for university-school partnerships are liv­ ing, evolving organisms. Yet, as this series on community and collaboration suggests, there are some clear common elements. L e a d e rs h ip The California Heritage Project was the re­ sult o f a convergence between two timely initiatives at UC Berkeley. One began in the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley’s special col­ lections library, with the development of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) stan­ dard.2 Initial funding from the National En­ dowment for the Humanities in support of EAD enabled the digitization o f a critical mass of the Bancroft’s historical photographs in the California Heritage Collection3— a Web-based digital archive o f nearly 30,000 items. Library leaders recognized that the Web allowed ld these valuable primary sources to be shared beyond the walls o f the university. Almost concurrently, UC Berkeley Infor­ mation Systems and Technology (IS&T) de­ partment began to coordinate a campuswide initiative to explore how Internet technology could best be used to share UC Berkeley re­ sources with local inner-city schools. The campus was supportive of such outreach ef­ forts, given a renewed commitment to the lo ca l com m unity in the 1996 B e rk eley Pledge,4 a response to the UC Regents’ re­ peal o f affirmative action as an admissions category. IS&T applied and received a Tele­ communications and Information Infrastruc­ ture Assistance Program (TIIAP) grant from the Department of Commerce in 1996.5 This TIIAP grant initiative was named the Interac­ tive University (IU).6 In f r a s t r u c t u r e To mobilize campus departments to extend access to their resources, IU issued a request for proposal to the campus and used the TIIAP grant to fund 20 one-year projects from multiple campus departments. The library Lisa Yesson is p ro ject director o f the California HeritageAbout the autorsh Project a t the University o f California, Berkeley, e-mail: lyesson@library.berkeley.edu; Lynn Jones is project coordinator o f the California Heritage Project a t the University o f California, Berkeley, e-mail: ljones@library.berkeley.edu mailto:lyesson@library.berkeley.edu mailto:ljones@library.berkeley.edu C& RL N ew s ■ M arch 2001 / 297 received one of the IU awards and was able to aim the California Heritage Project into reality. IU provided the seed funding for a project coordinator, but also provided other impor­ tant infrastructure. It created liaison positions with each targeted school district to build key district relationships, to facilitate the selec­ tion and participation of K-12 teachers, and to help bridge the divide between the K-12 and university cultures. Teacher recruitment included identifying school locations that had the necessary infrastructure— not only equip­ ment and Internet connectivity, but also the people to keep it all working. C o m m itm e n t One of the primary goals of the California Heritage Project was to create materials (e.g., lesson plans, guides, etc.) to make the Cali­ fornia Heritage Collec­ tion more accessible to K -12 audiences. We n eed ed te a ch e rs to make this possible. We recruited eight teachers and co n d u cte d a weeklong summer in­ stitu te and sev eral daylong w orkshops throughout the school year to give them an S tu d e n t u sin g th e C a lifo rn ia H e r ita g e C o lle c tio n o n lin e in h e r sch o o l. overview of California Heritage and other li­ brary resources, tech­ nology training, and hands-on work time. Through IU support we were able to get the teachers compensated for their time— another key element—although the work still required a significant commitment from the teachers. Tim e Lack of time continued to be one of our great­ est challenges. After several classroom visits, it was easy to see the enormous demands on a K-12 teacher’s schedule. Not only did we struggle to give them enough time to com­ plete their materials, but we were also just getting warmed up when the one-year IU grant was nearly over. It took nearly a year to build the relationships, provide the training, and troubleshoot the infrastructure. IU recognized this and extended the grant to three years in the second phase. P a rtn e rsh ip s With IU’s help, the California Heritage Project has continued into a second phase. Although we continue to struggle with many issues (e.g., teacher turnover in urban schools, time, technology, to name just a few), we have made some changes that have made a real difference in the quality of our work. Per­ haps the most valuable change has been an increased reliance on strong, real partnerships to accomplish our goals. • We adjusted project coordinator re­ sources from one full-time coordinator to two part-time coordinators with different, comple­ mentary backgrounds. The ideal coordina­ tors for this work understand both K-12 and university cultures; know technology, peda­ gogy, and library resources; and have strong project management skills. As finding this mix of skills in one person is quite a challenge, the ability to collabo­ rate in the coordination o f the p ro je c t has greatly enhanced the program. • We partnered with a local school reform organization, the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative,7 which shared our interest in primary sources and technology, brought expertise from the Li­ brary of Congress’s American Memory program, and filled in key gaps in our own knowledge of K-12 pedagogy. • Following the American Memory model, we recruited teacher-librarian teams to de­ velop our learning materials. Bringing in school librarians has made the most notable difference in the quality of our work. School librarians are more accessible on a daily ba­ sis than teachers, are less likely to change positions, support the teachers, and are able to extend the project— not just by working with the teachers at their own school site, but also through librarian organizations across districts and beyond. A m o d el? Leadership, infrastructure, commitment, time, (continued on page 306) 2 9 8 / C& RL N e w s ■ M arch 2001 306 / C&RL N ew s ■ M arch 2001 ( “S tan dards” con tin u ed fr o m p a g e 3 0 5 ) proficiency and professional effectiveness (performance, service, and scholarship) consistent with stated campus standards. The peer review system should be an in­ tegral part of procedures for promotion. 7. Leaves. Sabbatical and other research leaves should be available to librarians con­ sistent with campus standards. 8. R esearch and develop m en t funds. Librarians should have access to funding for research projects and professional de­ velopment consistent with campus stan­ dards. 9. Academ ic freed om . Librarians must have the same protection of academic free­ dom as all other faculty. Censorship of any type is unacceptable whether individual or organizational. All librarians must be free to provide access to information re­ gardless of content. ■ ( “Under construction” con tin u ed fr o m p a g e 2 9 7 ) and partnerships— these are probably not great surprises. However, it is surprising how difficult it can be to orchestrate and sustain the supporting activities to the level o f a true model. But the payoff is there. Opening the virtual doors of the univer­ sity not only extends rich, new resources to K -12 classrooms, it also promotes the skills and awareness needed to open the physical doors to historically hard-to-reach students. N o te s 1. http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary. 2. http://sunsite. berkeley.edu/ead/. 3 http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage. 4. http://w w w .chance.berkeley.edu/ bpledge/. 5. The Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) grant from the Department of Commerce is now the Technology Opportunities Program at http:// www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/top/index.html. 6. http://iu.berkeley.edu. 7. http://basrc.wested.org/basrc. ■ http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary http://sunsite http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage http://www.chance.berkeley.edu/ http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/top/index.html http://iu.berkeley.edu http://basrc.wested.org/basrc