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Interview: Gail Bush

Gail Bush, Ph.D., is a professor in the reading and language department, director of the school library program, and director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books at National–Louis University in Skokie, Illinois. Dr. Bush’s academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, master’s degree in library science, and doctorate in educational psychology.

Previously Dr. Bush administered academic and corporate libraries. She was the curriculum librarian in a suburban Chicago high school which was honored with the 1996 National School Library Media Program of the Year Award by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and Follett Library Resources. Dr. Bush was named North Suburban Library System School Librarian of the Year in 1998–99 for her leadership in the collaboration between her school program and the local public library. In 2007, she received the Illinois School Library Media Association Polestar Award for outstanding contributions to school libraries in Illinois and in 2008 was recognized as the University of Illinois Champaign–Urbana Graduate School of Library and Information Science Distinguished Alumnae. Dr. Bush also serves as a public library trustee for the Evanston Public Library in Evanston, Illinois. A frequent speaker, Dr. Bush publishes in education and library journals.

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BWI: Many public libraries include lifelong learning as part of their mission statement. How do you define lifelong learning, and why is the library the logical extension of this concept? How did you become interested in this relationship?

GB: The library, at its very core, is the cultural institution of the community. It has a unique role, which is why it is a universal in cultures with written traditions. The stewardship of the human records in that society in which the community dwells is one aspect of the role, the other, perhaps more authentic role for the library user, is the role in the enculturation the next generation. So in plain English, the library is a reflection of its community at a moment in time. Each library tells its own story. This is who we are, we bring with us who we have been, and we strive to serve who we might be. Libraries, like their users, are in a constant state of becoming. Entering a library on any given day is like standing in a river with the waters flowing around you. As you enter the library, it is your identity that becomes the driving force. How might that library serve your needs? Who are you today? Who are you in the process of becoming?

Like many other librarians, reading was my childhood salvation. Did anyone know that when I read, I was transported? I thought not. It seemed like a magical experience and if anyone else understood it they would be voracious readers as well. Perhaps my penchant for reading led to my academic interest in anthropology, my natural disposition toward everything library, followed by my doctoral studies in educational psychology that helped to explain how we take what we read and actually think, learn and transform ourselves.

BWI: Will you please briefly share your background and current positions that influence your views on lifelong learning?

GB: My library life includes begging my elementary school librarian to allow me to help out, and you guessed it, high school, undergrad, and graduate libraries followed. Still, I never considered librarianship as a profession. Frankly, I did not have a clue that it was anything more than circulation which I loved but did not see sustaining my interest. It was not until I had graduated in anthropology and was applying to the Peace Corps that an opportunity arose for a graduate assistantship and a free ride through a master’s program in library science. I said, ‘Ok’, with not much conviction, and the first day of my graduate studies was like learning to read all over again. It was a magical experience that opened up a whole world and as corny as it sounds, I was transported. I learned from the best and I gave it my all. We catalog the world’s knowledge, which was just the right amount for me. We seek answers to reference questions in every language on the planet, great; I’ll take that class. In my home state of Illinois, we had developed statewide multi-type library systems in the 1960s, sounded right up my alley. Consequently, my professional library background includes academic, corporate, school, and public library trusteeship. I saw no boundaries other than those that our own colleagues placed on library career paths.

BWI: You are currently the director at the Center of Teaching Through Children’s Books at National-Louis University. How does the center support educators and librarians in the mission of lifelong learning?

GB: One-half of my faculty position includes the directorship of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books (CTCB) (the other half is director of a school library program for certified teachers). This Center was the brainchild of Dr. Junko Yokota, with whom I have the privilege of directing the CTCB. It is dedicated to quality literature for children and adolescents and has a distinctly international, multicultural, and social justice mission. CTCB exhibits the best books from around the world in both the original publications and those available in English. We display the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) Hans Christian Andersen nominees alongside the American Library Association Booklist Editor’s Choice books. Come to our Center and you will stand in the midst of the most current, vetted books for children and youth. We teach through the Language and Literacy Program in the Reading and Language Department in the National College of Education at our university. We teach and mentor teachers and librarians to see their role in literacy without boundaries and borders. Like so many other communities, our students serve children from around the world. We cannot afford to have a limited view of literacy or literature as we share the best that our authors and illustrators have to offer. Our Center is also the secretariat for the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY), the US chapter of IBBY. We are dedicated to a global consciousness and we apply that philosophy to using and introducing literature to the next generation of educators and to the children’s literature community we foster.

BWI: With funding reductions and what appears to be a shift in how education institutions and libraries conduct the mission of fostering lifelong learning, what can libraries do to be effective in our current situation?

GB: On my desk sits a tiny publication that packs a wallop. It is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I like Article 18 but it is Article 19 that I see as a beacon for librarianship, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” We are always living through our current situation whatever that might be. Indeed, what is more challenging than the idea of America, a country that still stands apart from all others in such fundamentally democratic ways. We stand on the frontlines of those democratic ideals, we are the community agency that welcomes you in as you are and helps you to become who you might be, which, in our country, is limited only by your own vision and determination. I think about Michelangelo as he looked at a block of marble, and said that he saw “a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action.” We need to stay true to our vision. We do not have the luxury to allow ‘our current situation’ to limit our thinking, contain our potential, or impair transformation of our communities.

BWI: What programs are currently in operation that you would recommend that a library use to model its lifelong learning program? Is there any innovative collaboration between learning organizations that especially appeal to you?

GB: Each library is responsive to its community, so decisions made by one library will be different than another. Keep the community close so that you hear from supporters and detractors. Stay aware of other community agencies and align your goals to best serve your constituents. If a senior center is successful in their book discussion groups, support their program and focus on another audience at the library. Do not allow pride of ownership to cripple your efforts to be flexible and transformative. Both public and public-private partnerships are resourceful ways to seek creative solutions. Small, friendly, collaborative ventures have the best chance for success. By the very nature of the phenomenon, they are generative.

BWI: With the need to be selective with library services and materials because of funding constraints, what do you consider the “must-haves” that libraries need to maintain and defend to continue promoting lifelong learning?

GB: Not to sound all Pollyanna on you but who better to think resourcefully than librarians? We are nothing if not resourceful and resilient. We are masters at creative solutions, at doing more for less. On the other hand, we do need to stop doing what is not working – your community is trying to tell you something. If it is not effective, it is no longer relevant and we cease to be of service when we lose our relevancy to our community. We need to listen and we need to be lifelong learners in being responsive and responsible.

BWI: What do you think are the key motivators in the initial development of children as lifelong learners? Are there ways librarians can instill the values of life long learning in those who are otherwise not exposed to it?

GB: It is in our human nature to continue to challenge ourselves. We see that in what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls ‘flow, the psychology of optimal experience’ and Howard Gardner calls ‘the unschooled mind’. However, quality literature and critical thinking require guided discovery. Conversation is key; it is in dialogue that we best serve our young charges and in fact, that we gain self-knowledge. Talk about literature, about story, predict and respond. Traditionally we help learners find answers to their questions. Now we are obliged to help them question the answers.

BWI: How can libraries better serve schools that cannot, or do not, provide library services or promote library usage?

GB: Go to the school and ask the question. Ask the administrators, the teachers, the students and the parents. Develop a library advisory board for that purpose and enlist the assistance of the students in a visible role.

BWI: What can libraries do to promote lifelong learning in young adults who no longer attend school? How can this concept be continued through middle adult years?

GB: Stay connected to the community agencies that are serving these young adults (including churches and clubs). Seek out advisors among them. Find a hook that is meaningful to them so that the library might enhance something already of value in their lives. Keep your employment services relevant to their needs – including resume review, mock interviews, and those aspects of appropriate development that assists them in reaching their life goals.

BWI: What roles do you envision technology have on the life long learning mission? What do you see as some of the advantages and disadvantages to digitization? Are there other technological trends that you expect to impact libraries in the near future?

GB: This question is a whole other interview. In a nutshell, libraries and technology have been interwoven since the days of Alexandria. And since change is our constant, what better fit for the advances of emerging technologies to find a home at your community library. As we move closer to the semantic web, we need to stay vigilante that personalized information services do not limit the perspective of our learners.

BWI: What resources do you recommend for librarians, considering the role of libraries and lifelong learning?

GB: Librarians need to be open to the universe. I see your brow furrowing. Here is what I mean by that. It would be nice if I were two inches taller. Can I make that happen? No. But I would like to continue to learn more languages because I see that as a way to continue to learn about more cultures. And at my ripe age, I am in language classes. Here is another example: Before I started my doctoral studies, I decided that I needed to brush off my learning chops so I took ice skating lessons. It was fun and painful at the same time but the real lessons came in how to learn. We need to mine our inner resources, to continue that novice perspective of learning something so new and different in order to keep the needs of the learner fresh in our minds.

BWI: And on a personal note: what are you reading/listening to/watching from your library?

GB: Poetry, it is always poetry for me. There is something about it that speaks directly to my head and to my heart and it cannot be denied. I am reading Charles Simic, Margaret Atwood, and A.S. Merwin. I am spinning my Poetry Foundation (free) App on my iPhone. I have just finished my annual Joyce Carol Oates novel, I’ll Take You There, staring at The Waves by Virginia Woolf, which I continually intend to read but keep rereading Mrs. Dalloway instead, and hinting that I would like Nadine Gordimer’s Telling Times: Writing and Living just in case anyone is interested.

BWI: Thank you for sharing your views with us.

GB: At the end of his lectures at the University of Chicago, John Dewey (the other Dewey) used to look out the window and thank his class for helping him to clarify is own views. And in that same spirit, I thank you for this opportunity.

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