Six-word library memoir

The six-word memoir is a Web phenomenon and book publishing phenomenon. National Public Radio ran a story about it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18768430. The official Six Word Web site is www.smithmag.net/sixwords.

The Six-Word Memoir works like this: people write a real-life story in exactly six words. Here are a few examples from the SMITH Web site:

• Not quite what I was planning.
• Fifteen years since last professional haircut.
• Never really finished anything except cake.

For your extra-credit assignment, write a six-word library memoir and post it in this discussion thread: convey in exactly six words a library or reading or research experience. Here are a few examples:

• Wish this article were full-text.
• Contented quiet hours among beautiful books.
• What happened to the card catalog?

This is meant to be a fun, easy way to earn an extra point. Everyone who writes a six-word library memoir will get the extra credit (your memoir doesn’t have to sound like it was written by Ernest Hemingway or anything). So have fun, don’t feel like you have to spend a long time on this, and by all means, if you want to express frustration about using the library, I am completely open to that. I want to read six-word memoirs that reflect all types of library or reading or research experiences, not just the perfectly happy ones.

Student reflections

If the success of an assignment can be measured by the enjoyment the instructor derives from reading students’ submissions, then this assignment was a smash hit. I found myself literally laughing out loud and replying with heartfelt smiley-faces to six-word library memoirs such as:

• Must bend databases to my will.

That memoir cleverly adopts the idiom of an imperiled comic-book superhero to express important affective aspects of the research process: the student has obviously felt frustration in her use of the library, while persevering to achieve a research goal. That student, who also wrote that she was familiar with the six-word genre and had enjoyed writing in it before, was able to speak to a common experience of library users with heartening humor.

Other students wrote in a similar vein, frankly addressing the problems and sense of discouragement that all researchers have felt:

• Would pay for a researching robot.
• Every book I need is unavailable!
• Researching can be a little complicated.

The burdensome and antiquated tradition of properly citing sources—the bane of every beginning researcher—came in for its share of abuse:

• Citations can be difficult at times
• I find professors grade citations differently
• Citations are annoying but necessary requirements

Students did, however, report on acquiring citation skills, as well as newfound confidence conducting research in general:

• Finally, I know how to cite!
• Good key terms, great search results.
• Confident about using the online library.
• Didn’t understand library until LIBS course.
• This old dog learned new tricks.

One of my favorite memoirs concerns a challenge that academic librarians commonly face, raising the library’s visibility on campus:

• Really, my school has a library?

If an information literacy class does nothing else than make students aware that their school does in fact have a library, the class has succeeded.

Some students used their six-word memoir to comment on the class itself. This student spoke of the unexpected rigor of our one-credit class, which, as the instructor, I take as a compliment:

• One credit course, three credit research.

LIBS 150 is a required course for all undergraduates, and several students breathed a sigh of relief in their memoirs:

• Finally, checked off my requirements list.
• One class closer to my dream.

I find the word dream in that last memoir especially evocative. Most UMUC students are adult learners, many of whom have families and work full-time, and simply were not able to obtain a college degree at the traditional age, in their early 20s. For that reason, I fully understand students approaching my or any course with the attitude, “I’ve got to get this done.” Successfully completing my class does bring a student one step closer to the dream of graduation; in the case of an adult learner, it is a dream they may have contemplated for many years.

Because my students are adult learners, with a wealth of life experience, I didn’t mind if one or two of them strayed from the narrow path of the assignment and wrote life, rather than library, memoirs. When one student wrote in six words that he was going to become a dad again, I and others in the class congratulated him, and of course he received the one-point extra credit.

Several students marked the historic shift we are seeing in reading technology, voicing positive and negative opinions on e-books:

• Still love to read paper books!
• Is the Kindle version available yet?

Other students directed their attention—archly—to libraries themselves:

• Libraries are excellent places for sleeping.
• Wish my library had a PS3.

Even if a librarian cannot provide public access to the latest Sony PlayStation, students still express affection for the profession as a whole:

• Never met a librarian I disliked.

And one student offered librarians implicit advice on creating an exciting, glamorous physical environment for patrons. He had the opportunity to visit the sleek, modern Amsterdam Public Library in the Netherlands and wrote:

• This looks like an Apple store.

There could be no higher praise coming from that student, an inveterate Mac user.

Finally, one student summed up not only what it is like to conduct research online—she was able to give voice to the entirety of our Web-driven Zeitgeist:

• Every link leads to another link.

The memoirs were posted in a discussion thread, and, though it was not a requirement of the assignment, many students took the time to respond to their classmates’ posts, seconding them, laughing, and cheering each other on. The exercise worked well in an asynchronous online class—students had time to reflect on their library experiences, select just the right six words, and also read and comment on their classmates’ memoirs.

The assignment worked particularly well towards the end of the term, as a fast, enjoyable way for students to earn extra credit when they were busy completing course modules and doing an in-depth research exercise. The six-word library memoir encourages students to think critically—and sometimes acerbically—on their experiences as library users and academic researchers. The freedom to share a range of thoughts and emotions about libraries and research—from achievement to puzzlement to frustration—can further the feeling of the class “being in this together,” which is especially helpful in an online class, where a sense of presence and community is essential.