Thing 15

I must say, I was disheartened, but not surprised by A Vision of Students Today. We are living in an era of technology explosion that we cannot ignore. Even though I left the traditional college setting in 2006, I could not totally relate to the video. There was no wi-fi access, which meant that everyone ignored the lecture by 'old-fashioned' ways like sleeping or reading a non-related book. Otherwise, everything was the same. Shh, don't tell, but during textbook adoptions at every school I've worked at, we arrive at consensus by the thought, "We won't use it anyway, so which has the best supplemental materials?"

In Into a New World of Librarianship, Michael Stephens lists skills that librarians need to embrace. My favorite is "Librarian 2.0 controls technolust." Just because something is new and looks 'cool,' doesn't mean it belongs in a library. Information literacy doesn't just apply to students! Public librarians need to do research and decide if the desired technology would be beneficial to their patrons, and school librarians need to decide if it will complement learning.