Thing #15

Rick Anderson's "iceberg" analogy put it into perspective. As we move further & further away from the card catalog and a librarian teaching students how to use a card catalog, students have more information at their fingertips than ever. I am sure that many of the books in that catalog have never even been opened. And then the ones that you do need are never there...arrgghhh! Now that all that can be bypassed, I think students will enjoy (or at least not mind) doing research. I do wander if all this technology that is available online will make traditional libraries obsolete. To prevent this from occuring in school libraries now that Library 2.0 has come into being, is that librarians & teachers will constantly have to utilize Library 2.0 to stay "with it." Public libraries, I believe, have a slightly different fate...lately as I have driven past these buildings with my 7 month old, I notice loads of moms toting their little ones into storytime. I remember now that my mom took us to the library every week & we had to pick out 5 books we would read that week. She refused to let us become "couch potatoes" or glued to video games. I want this for my little guy too and if public libraries continue to offer things like this, I think they will escape the fate that others face. Please pardon my random thoughts & rants, but I want my child to get those reading certificates each month & an ever-growing vocabulary during the summer rather than carpal tunnel syndrome.