Magazines of today are created, produced, and distributed mainly online.  But, what does that do to the experience of reading your former physical copy?  As she states, “You don’t expect it to precede a “well” of reported stories. Nor do you anticipate a first-person essay or a crossword puzzle.” It’s just the words or letters on the screen. 

A few people tried to meet the needs of online readers.  People such as Steven Johnson and Stefanie Syman, who started Feed, one of the Web’s first magazines. They made their online magazine, started at the same time as Salon, tech savvy but it never took off. 

Then, according to Heffernan, “Michael Kinsley came upon the scene with Slate where graphics and stellar writing provide the payload.”  He made the model for the remainder of online magazines. But, she says, “now that we are here, Slate and Salon are communities and producers of influential articles; they’re not really magazines.”

The British Library’s archive includes more than 250 million items collected over 250 years while the BBC’s archive includes nearly 1 million hours of TV and radio footage.  The two organizations will  establish a joint steering committee to develop a uniform approach on issues including rights management, distribution of archive content, and technical issues of digitization and storage.

Why do this?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art created an unbelievable online collection but the patron’s searches were finding nothing in the catalog.  Susan Chun, project lead and co-principal investigator of Steve found a ”semantic gap between the ways users queried and how we described [an object].  The system was not adequate to serving users who thought of art in systems of color, emotion, ideas, and events.”  They have also found that this new project, which asks visitors to tag objects, makes them “…feel that their opinions matter and are valuable to the museum.”

She feels that technology is not killing literacy but revitalizing it.  And even states, “I think we ‘re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization.”  Because students spend so much time on line, they also spend an enormous amount of time writing.  And it’s good writing – these students are aware of their audience and the needs of the audience.  This conversational style of writing provides a platform for these students to express their opinions  to others, not just their professors.        

And no, she didn’t find any use of text speak in their academic papers meaning that there is also some great teaching going on in those classrooms.  How else would these students master the art of true prose?  But, back to the fact of the matter, students are finding out that, as Thompson states, “knowing who you are writing for and why you’re writing might be the most crucial factor of all.”

I was a teacher (in a former life, I enjoyed being abused by the public school system – just kidding, of course) while I lived in Virginia where I spent my days teaching 6th grade language arts.  So, my former and present life collide making me a reference librarian who is actually certified to teach.

Now, back to the blog post which was well researched and caught my attention on many points.

First

Teachers/librarians use stories to ‘co-construct’  learning.  I agree with that point as it works in higher education.  Actually, my teaching philosophy designed for my Master of Arts in Teaching program, expounds on that exact idea of constructive teaching.  But, in a 6th grade classroom, not so much.  Rather, in higher education, telling stories engages the class and brings them closer to understanding and wanting to use strategies like information literacy.

Second

I also agree with the analogy that teachers are like actors.  There’s always a sense of preparation to be made before entering the classroom whether that particular lesson has been taught once or one hundred times.  To keep it fresh, a little anxiety is good.  Adding a new joke or story can only enhance the experience for the teacher and students.

Third

I do think authenticity is important in a classroom, but I’m not in favor of vulnerability.  After all, the teacher is there to be the authority on the subject.  I’d say I’m more in line with the author’s quote about “withitness” in which Malcolm Gladwell wrote in a New Yorker article, that ” withitness is innate,” thereby giving a natural spark to teaching.  And not everyone has it.

Conclusion

To build authenticity and trust among students, my favorite past-times are to return to the games I used to play with my 6th graders.  A little Bingo, Jeopardy, or Popcorn game played with the Wiffle ball always brings a group together.

Educause recently released its “7 Things You Should Know About” pamphlet concerning cloud computing.  The pamphlet explains cloud computing as the “delivery of scalable IT resources over the Internet”.  By using cloud computing, these resources can be purchased as needed rather than  investing in extra software or hardware.  Proving extremely popular at a time when budgets are feeling constraints while higher education is feeling the pressure to provide immediate access to the latest in IT resources.

But what are the risks to trusting a third party with all that information?  Even though cloud computing encourages standards of protocols and processes to ensure efficiency, there are concerns about privacy, security, data integrity, and intellectual property management.  Controls are in the hands of a third party, so there must be a certain degree of trust between all parties – institution, client, and provider.  In the end, cloud computing may offer more security considering the complex nature of an  institution’s individual security measures.

According to the article (Inside, Outside, & Online) in the March 2009 edition of American Libraries, communities continue to deflate causing there to be a question about where libraries fit in to the whole picture. Considering our economic conditions, right now is the time to market our libraries as not only a place for free Internet access but also a place for families to enjoy a book club, a gaming session, a class where students can learn new computer design skills, and a place which holds more community meetings.

Here in Chattanooga and the surrounding area, there is a growing contingent involved in the community.   Recently, a group of concerned citizens began a program called Chattanooga Stand.  As the site states, the group’s “mission is to engage community members to express their ideas of the future, organize around common purposes, and translate vision into action.”  In the future, it would be nice to see groups like the Chattanooga Stand embrace the library and meet at one of the local facilities.

All in all, the library can be a place where communities come together not just a place where they educate the community.  It can also be a place where the community meets and where they go to have fun.

Since the elimination of psychiatric hospitals, those patrons most likely have become more dangerous.  According to an article in the March/April 2009 edition of Public Libraries, a Los Angeles librarian wrote an Op-Ed piece about the state of urban libraries.  In the piece, she stated, “virtually all the urban libraries in the nation” have become shelters for the homeless population.

But, how do we help these people without the necessary training of staff or the necessary programs to help get these patrons the help they need or the job that may give them some independence?

Recently, this same problem occurred with young children and teenagers.  But, libraries began to design programs to meet the needs of these patrons.  Do we need to do the same for the homeless, even if the library is part of a a public university?

On June 12, 2009, the  Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that the Hamilton County commissioners “…unanimously voted for a resolution urging local legislators to support the $47.5 million UTC needs for a new library.”   Legislators were hoping that federal stimulus money would free up state money to pay for the project even though the project had already been allocated the money over two years ago.  Since the ground has not even been broken to start the library, the money was used elsewhere.

In a UTC news release dated June 19, 2009, its stated,  “the faculty, staff, and student assistants at the Lupton Library envision the new Library as the academic and intellectual center of campus, a marketplace of ideas.”  Operations that will call the new library home include the Writing Center, Student Success Center, Walker Teaching Resource Center, and the Graduate Student Association.

Construction of the new library building is scheduled to begin in July 2010 with a completion date after January 1, 2012.

In the June 19, 2009 edition of Geardiary.com, Dan Cohen writes about his discovery of what he calls, “a huge Achilles heel in the whole Kindle environment.”  I wouldn’t call it as much an Achilles heel as marketing and sales genius.

While upgrading his iPod touch, Cohen discovered that he couldn’t download books from his Kindle to his iPod.  If this book was already on his Kindle, I don’t really see why he needed it on the iPod – let’s hope he wasn’t going to try reading it while driving.   Maybe it was just for the glory of being techno savy?  Who knows.

I’m sure you can guess by now why he wasn’t allowed to download these books.  There was a limit to the number of times he could download the books.  He had exceeded that limit and became upset about having to repurchase the book.

This is capitalism at its best.  Kindle and Apple roll out new products every year and people buy these products just like they used to buy new cars.  If there is a market, why not exploit it.  Then all the tech savvy people, who pay a fortune for gadgets to download books they could easily get at a library, expect to upgrade their gadgets without having to pay for the intellectual property they attach to those gadgets.  It’s like giving them a credit card and not reading the fine print about the finance charges.  Oh right, there are people who don’t have a clue about their credit cards.  But, that’s another story.

Cohen further pressed the customer service representative about the amount of downloads for a book.  The representative replied, “That’s entirely up to the publisher and I don’t think we always know.”   Why would Kindle/Amazon have a policy?  They are selling you a book from a publisher, not from Amazon.

People have been dealing with and will continue dealing with this same issue.  I know, pantyhose are so not hip anymore and this is a silly example.  But, talk to any woman who had to buy a new pair of pantyhose every time they got a run in them.  While they were a part of the fad, they were capitalist gold.

So, stop your complaining about repurchasing your books for your new Kindle or your iPod.  Be glad you have your gadget and that you are able to stimulate the economy.