Growing kids’ minds—and BS detectors: Will N.Y.’s Scroogish guv get in the way? Plus a TeleRead angle
Hats off to Stephanie Rosalia, a school librarian in Brooklyn, whom the New York Times wrote up in a feature story on the evolving role of her profession.
Without telling her elementary and middle school students what’s going on, she points them to a Web site called All about Explorers. The catch is that it’s packed with false facts that they’re supposed to notice on their own. Did you know that Columbus introduced the Indians to cell phones and computers? A student in fact did zero in on the bizarreness.
This is information literacy in action. And yet New York’s Scroogish governor is pushing a state budget that in effect would reduce the number of school librarians. Is that Gov. David Paterson’s new mission? To turn New York into Alabama? Nice job, Guv! Dumb down future voters. With luck they won’t notice how New York instead could be making millionaires and billionaires bear their share of the tax burden.
The TeleRead angle
In calling for a well-stocked national digital library system, I’ve emphasized that e-books and other items aren’t enough. We also need to integrate digital collections into local schools and libraries, and information literacy would be no small part of this. Another element of TeleRead would be the use of technology to expand the number of up-to-date titles available to fit students’ needs and interests.
"Some books in the collection still described Germany as two nations," the New York Times reports in describing Stephanie Rosalia’s school library before she modernized it, "and others referred to the Soviet Union as if it still existed."
As for needs and interests, the Times tells how she helped the 1930s come alive for one student by finding a book on the Empire State Building, which opened in 1931 during the Great Depression. Turns out he’d gone there for his birthday. What a great example of S.R. Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science in action! That’s S.R. above, by the way. I think he’d love TeleRead.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Hi David,
I enjoy reading Teleread but I really wish you wouldn’t go off-topic with populist statements like “Nice job, Guv! Dumb down future voters. With luck they won’t notice how New York instead could be making millionaires and billionaires bear their share of the tax burden.” From this Bloomberg.com article: “New York’s top 1 percent of earners paid more than 36 percent of the state’s total income tax in 2008.” So it seems the millionaires and billionaires you are so keen to punish merely for being wealthy are paying way more than “their share” of the taxes (unless you think these people consume 30 times more in public services than the rest of the population).
February 16th, 2009 at 9:33 am
David, I appreciate the push to keep librarians and to promote reading. The importance of reading and literacy cannot be overstated.
However, as a New York resident who pays some of the highest taxes in the country and whose dysfunctional government has created a $16 billion budget crisis, I think it is unfair to castigate our governor. Somehow our budget has to be balanced and unlike any of the advocacy groups who want to preserve their funding, he has at least offered concrete proposals that share the pain. I’m not suggesting I agree with his choices; rather, I am saying that it is easy to say do not cut my favorite projects and not offer anything concrete to solve the problem. The health care industry wants no cuts; education wants no cuts; labor wants no cuts — nobody wants to give up anything from their own fiefdom.
I would also add this. I do not know if you are a New York resident, but I suspect not. As a non-New Yorker it is easy for you to criticize and say don’t cut librarians or teachers or book buying or whatever. Instead, how about stepping up to the plate and saying that you think keeping librarians is important enough in New York that you will fund the cost for 1 school librarian and challenge others to do the same? Can’t afford to do so? Well, guess what: neither can I and neither can most other New Yorkers in these times.
Again, I do not support all of the governor’s suggestions but I really dislike when people become part of the problem rather than part of the solution, which is all too common today.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Thanks for your candid thoughts, Rich.
Actually, I have offered to pay for content for New York and other states, through a well-stocked national digital library system supported by taxes.
That’s much or most of what TeleRead is about.
As for the means through which New York and others can pay, a fairer tax structure at both the state and federal levels would go a long way. The tax issue and library-service-level issue are very much intertwined.
Thanks,
David
February 16th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Robbie: Thanks very much for your perspective, even if we disagree.
“New York’s top 1 percent of earners paid more than 36 percent of the state’s total income tax in 2008.”
As well they should–given the vast differences in income between them and the rest of the state. Also see:
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/taxhistory2.htm
Hey, keep posting. As long as people are civil, which you definitely are, I encourage people to speak up whether they agree with Paul or me or not! Paul, by the way, is probably FAR less populist than I am. He’s even a retired corporate lawyer, adding to fun!
Thanks,
David