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<p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
My School Library Consultant
colleague, Jen Maurer, just sent <font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">the article
below</font> out on the Oregon Association of School Libraries
(OASL)
listserv and I thought you all would be interested in it too. As most
of
you know Oregon
school districts have also been cutting certified school library media
specialists over
the past several
years. <br>
<br>
Here are some Oregon
statistics from the Quality Education Model (QEM) data <font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">and ODE’s online school directory which</font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </font>you can review
in full at: </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><a href="http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=1495"><span style="text-decoration: none;">http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=1495</span></a></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"><br>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Of the </span><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="red">1,318</font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="red">schools in</font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Oregon</span><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="blue"> </font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="red">during
the 2008-2009 school year, there were</font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">:</span></span></font></p>
<ul style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">376</span></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
certified school librarians /media specialists. If you like
percentages: 29%
of schools in
Oregon had certified library media
specialists in 2008-2009.</span></font></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">731</span></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
school library support staff. If you like percentages: 55% of schools in Oregon
had library support staff in 2008-2009.</span></font></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"><br></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Here are a few things for
public librarians to think about:</span></font></p>
<ul type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">What does it mean to be
information lite<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ra</span><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="red">te?</font>
</span></font></li><ul type="circle"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">"To be information
literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is
needed
and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the
needed
information" The American Library
Association's (ALA) Presidential Committee on Information
Literacy, <span class="externaltext">1989.</span></span></font></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Information Literacy
Standards for Student Learning by American Association of School
Libraries:
<a href="http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/informationpower/InformationLiteracyStandards_final.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/informationpower/InformationLiteracyStandards_final.pdf</a>
</span></font></li></ul><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">How is your library
supporting school library
staff and teachers who provide direct information literacy
instruction to
students? </span></font></li><ul type="circle"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Learn new ideas for
partnering with your school</span></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"> library
staff and teachers </span></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"> at: <a href="http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/initiatives/partnerships/coopacts/schoolplcoopprogs.cfm" target="_blank">http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/initiatives/partnerships/coopacts/schoolplcoopprogs.cfm</a></span></font></li></ul><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">How is your library
supporting the information
literacy development of children and teens when they come to your
library?</span></font></li><ul type="circle"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">What one youth librarian
is
thinking of doing to promote information literacy in her public
library
over the summer: <a href="http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/?p=791" target="_blank">http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/?p=791</a></span></font></li></ul></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"><br>
<br>
<br>
</span></font></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Katie Anderson</span></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">, Library
Development Services</span></font><br><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
* Youth Services Consultant * Oregon
Center for the Book
Coordinator *</span></font><br><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
Oregon State
Library, 250 Winter St.
NE, Salem,
OR 97301</span></font><br><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
<a href="mailto:katie.anderson@state.or.us">katie.anderson@state.or.us</a>,
503-378-2528</span></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"> </span></font><br><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"></span></font></div><blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 255); margin-right: 0px;"><div class="Section1">
<p class="deckhead"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scribner21-2010mar21,0,764753.story" target="_blank">http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scribner21-2010mar21,0,764753.story</a>
</span></font></p>
<p class="deckhead"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Opinion</span></font></p>
<h1><b><font face="Tahoma" size="6"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Saving
the Google students</span></font></b></h1>
<h2><b><font face="Tahoma" size="5"><span style="font-size: 18pt; font-family: Tahoma;">For
the Google generation, closing school libraries could be disastrous. Not
teaching kids how to sift through sources is like sending them into the world
without knowing how to read.</span></font></b></h2>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="byline"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">By Sara Scribner</span></font></span><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"> </span></font></p>
<p class="date"><span class="datestring"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">March 21, 2010</span></font></span><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"></span></font></p>
<p class="date"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">The current generation of kindergartners to 12th graders --
those born between 1991 and 2004 -- has no memory of a time before Google. But
although these students are far more tech savvy than their parents and are
perpetually connected to the Internet, they know a lot less than they think. And
worse, they don't know what they don't know.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;"><br>
As a librarian in the Pasadena
Unified School
District, I teach students research skills. But
I've just been pink-slipped, along with five other middle school and high
school librarians, and only a parcel tax on the city's May ballot can save the
district's libraries. Closing libraries is always a bad idea, but for the
Google generation, it could be disastrous. In a time when information literacy
is increasingly crucial to life and work, not teaching kids how to search for
information is like sending them out into the world without knowing how to
read. <br>
<br>
Instead of simply navigating books and the Readers' Guide to Periodical
Literature -- an annual index of magazine and newspaper articles used in the
olden days -- today's students sift through an infinite number of options:
books, Internet sources, academic databases. Much of the time they opt for
Google, which is like beingtossed into the ocean without a paddle. <br>
<br>
An info-literate student can find theright bit of information amid the sea of
irrelevance and misinformation. But any college librarian will tell you that
freshman research skills areabsolutely abysmal. Before they graduate from high
school, students need to be able tounderstand thephenomenal number of
information options at their fingertips, learn how to work with
non-Google-style search queries, avoid plagiarism and judge whether the facts
before them were culled by an expert in the field or tossed off by a crackpot
in the basement.<br>
<br>
As even struggling school districts manage to place computers in classrooms,
it's difficult to find a child without Internet access. But look closer at what
happens when students undertake an academic task as simple as researching
global warming -- tens of millions of hits on Google -- and it becomes clear
that the so-called divide is not digital but informational. It's not about
access; it's about agility. <br>
<br>
Most children consider a computer search second nature, so trying to give them
instruction or advice can be difficult. Recently, noticing that a sixth-grader
didn't know how to search the school library catalog, I tried to show him the
steps. "You don't need to tell me," he said, clearly insulted.
"I know how to use a computer!"<br>
<br>
It is especially shocking when students attempt to tap into the library's
catalog system by entering a book search on Amazon or searching the website for
Accelerated Reader's BookFinder (an online database that contains every book
included in the Accelerated Reader program). They sometimes don't understand
that these are discrete sites and systems. For them, the Internet is one big
amorphous information universe. <br>
<br>
And to most kids, whatever they read on the Internet is "all good."
I've been told, quite emphatically, that the Apollo moonwalk never happened,
the Holocaust was a hoax and George W. Bush orchestrated 9/11 -- all based on
text, photos or videos found online.<br>
<br>
Although students might be able to hack through a school's video-game blocking
devices, they have trouble formulating successful search queries and making
sense of what they find. This needs to be taught -- again and again and again,
in different grades and in different ways. <br>
<br>
Librarians can show students how tojudge a website and how to avoid landing on
bogus ones. We can also train them to come up with the kind of precision search
terms that could save them hours of sorting through a heap of useless hits.<br>
<br>
To research global warming, for example, I'd suggest an academic database such
as ProQuest's eLibrary or SIRS
Researcher, which have age-appropriate content. Or I'd steer students to
reliable Internet sources from library subscription sites such as Britannica
Online, which are vetted by experts. I could also teach them to use Google's
advanced features. <br>
<br>
Instead of laying off librarians, we should be studying how children think
about information and technology. We need professionals to advocate for
teaching information literacy from an early age. We need librarians to love
books -- to inspire kids to turn off the screen sometimes and get caught up in
a story -- but we also need them to train students to manipulate search engines
and databases, to think about themin a fresh way. <br>
<br>
Instead of closing library doors, we need to give librarians the time to teach
what they know: basic research survival skills that are as important as
reading, writing and math. If we don't teach our kids to take charge of
information, they will get swept aside by it. <br>
<br>
Sara Scribner is a librarian at Blair International Baccalaureate
School, a public middle and high
school in Pasadena.<br>
<br>
<br>
</span></font></p>
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<p class="copyright"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">Copyright © 2010, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/">The Los Angeles Times</a></span></font></p>
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