Knowledge is Power

When I was in grade school my teachers made us listen to a song, or was it a poem? Regardless this song/poem had a very catchy mantra of “knowledge is power, grab it while you can.” Growing up I always had a great appreciation of knowledge and learning. One of the reasons I wanted to become a school librarian was to spread that love of learning, books and general knowledge. So when I sat down to read the thread on knowledge creation I couldn’t help but hum this tune in my head. I have to think that the song had it right. Knowledge is power. I’m not sure you can grab it though, as it is not something physical like a book, but knowledge is what improves society, what brings people together and changes the world. 

 When reading the Atlas of New Librarianship the concept that resonated with me the most is that knowledge is created through conversation.  I believe this couldn’t be more correct. As an education undergrad I learned that many professionals in the education field have stressed that learning through a one-sided lecture often doesn’t reach many students. Instead they suggest discussions or conversations that allow students to hear the facts and then deliver their own opinions. This holds true to anyone. People tend to learn more and gain knowledge through talking or somehow going over what they have read or learned. Conversations, to most people, mean talking to one person and then another person responds. However, the Atlas of New Librarianship offer that conversations can happen between yourself and yourself, or between a institution (like a library) and members of the community. I had never thought of it like that before, but even when you’re reading a textbook you are not just absorbing the knowledge off the page. This knowledge seeps into your head when you question the reading, think “I didn’t think about that before” or even relate what you read to your own previous experience. This is why the artifact central worldview doesn’t work. Because though librarians may use books, knowledge itself doesn’t come from simply staring at a book, it comes from conversations. So if knowledge is conversations, then a library must make sure they listen.

                Obviously conversation is very important. Not only does it facilitate the creation of knowledge, but it helps a library reach out to its community and deliver the services, materials or improvements the community desires. People will use a library more if the library seeks the community’s feedback on what the community wants. What most people, including myself, didn’t realize was that this feedback is a conversation and thus must involve the community talking to the library and the library talking with the community. In 511, Professor Lankes discussed how this conversation is a two way street. The library members may state that they desire a particular feature for their library and the library may respond that this will not work for the library because this feature may be obsolete in a few years. The question I have is what happens when the community doesn’t want to listen to what the libraries have to say?