Good Looking Out: Crucial Feedback from Students David Gallin-Parisi, School Librarian, St. Anthony Catholic High School, San Antonio, TX (FTE: 400) Big Talk From Small Libraries 2017 February 24, 2017 http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/bigtalk/

2. What is this Presentation About?
Intro and About My School
Why is Feedback Important?
Options Are Good
Official Survey Technique
Unofficial Survey Technique: Pardon Me While I Wake You Up From Your Nap
Small Everyday Info Gathering
Bonus Feature: Build Music Playlists on the Wall

3. Intro and About My School
Guybrarian.
Also an artist,
who makes zines, comics.
My School:
St. Anthony Catholic High School in San Antonio, TX.
Serves about 400 students, grades 9-12
I’m the only librarian and library staff person.

9. Why is Feedback Important?
Incorporates your students’ voice.
Specifically his/her own voice.
Makes the space their own.
Provides a feeling of ownership.
Shows you care about how your people feel.
Has your library got soul?
Get some feedback to find out.

10. Options Are Good
Figuring what people know and what they don’t know.
Show them, tell them.
For example: show teens pictures of furniture choices, give
them some options they might not be familiar with.

11. How to build the best surveys?
I really don’t know.
Try many different methods. Make it easy on yourself.
Create a google form to enter your information.
Enter your paper information into a digital form.
Open-ended questions are wonderful.
So are likert scales:

12. Essential Questions
Open-ended
Thought-provoking
Calls for higher-order thinking.
Points toward important,
transferable ideas.
Raises additional questions.
Requires support and justification.
Recurs over time.
(McTighe, 3)

13. Official Survey Technique: Paper Forms
Keep people’s mind on the library.
Even if the library is being used for another event.
There is the curse/magic of libraries being multi-purpose
spaces. Make the curse work for you. Turn it into magic.
For example a bi-annual blood drive takes over my entire
library space. I use that day to survey people: lunchtime,
between classes, around the blood drive, wherever.
https://goo.gl/forms/Azze9HFss1p8iUBJ3https://goo.gl/forms/Azze9HFss1p8iUBJ3

14. If I could change one
thing at SACHS
Library it would be:
Music corner, bean bag
chairs, board game day
(competition), rent out board
games to study halls and no
final exam periods
More decorations (lights,
paper origami).
Adjust spacing
What does SACHS Library add to the
school? In other words, how is
SACHS Library valuable to St.
Anthony Catholic High School?
Comfortable atmosphere for students to work.
Knowledgeable librarian.
A place to quietly hang; safe zone.
It creates an open and visual environment as soon
as you walk in the door.
It's inviting, never empty.

15. What do you WANT TO DO at the library? Write down
anything and as many things.
I would like to have a regular type of class based on books,
stories, and imagination.
Make it more open, get more books.
Chill, homework, socialize, talk to GP
Another 3d printer. More chairs
I want to go in and just do what I need to do.
Color, paint.

16. Official Survey Technique: Discussion Sessions
Open-ended survey technique that comes with hot chocolate.
I used a program called Catch, sadly no longer in business.
Other options: LinoIt, Padlet, and more.
Enables students to connect directly to the “screen” and give
feedback, like a pop-up music video.
Don’t be afraid of random teen comments like “Future”. Do be
aware of any disrespectful comments that get added.
http://linoit.com/users/boomshackalack/canvases/goodlookingouthttp://linoit.com/users/boomshackalack/canvases/goodlookingout

17. Paper Forms Responses
Insert responses here

18. Paper Forms Responses
Insert responses here

19. Unofficial Survey Technique: Pardon Me While I
Wake You From Your Nap
Build relationships and seek info.
Wake a person up who might be sleeping in the library.
Later on during the class period, or just sometime after the
student is properly awake, ask them what they think about the
furniture.
You don’t have to ask about what they envision for the library.
You can measure things as they currently are, starting small.

20. Small Everyday Info Gathering
Focus on small and everyday info gathering for more realistic
information. You can even talk about how you like playing
with space out in the world, seeing how people respond.
Twitter response from one of my graduated students:

21. Bonus Feature:
Music Playlists on the Wall
Songs That Saved Your Life
2.
3.
4.
5.

22. David Gallin-Parisi
A Playlist of Dance Music for Collecting Feedback
1. Duke Ellington Tulip or Turnip, Live at Newport 1956
2. Omar-S Scene Was Set (Norm Talley Mix)
3. Waylon Jennings Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?
4. Tomorrow’s People Open Soul
5. The Kinks Here Comes Yet Another Day
6. Can Vitamin C
7. Derrick May Strings of The Strings of Life
8. SVN Dark Plan 5 (Extended Mix)
9. Soichi Terada Saturday Love Sunday
10.Mr. Monday Daybreak

24. Works Cited
Davis, Stuart. New York Waterfront. 1938. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. WebMuseum, Paris.
https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/davis/. Accessed February 2017.
@JadElClemens. “And what a kickass job you did” Twitter. 16 Aug 2015, 12:56 a.m.,
https://twitter.com/JadElClemens/status/632792931930275840.
McTighe, Jay, and Grant Wiggins. Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding. ASCD,
2013.
Saveri, Lele, et al. The Newsstand. Skira Rizzoli, 2016.