Week 6 #15

Before this year I don't think I had thought too much about 2.0 and what it meant for libraries. However, this entire school year has changed that for me. I began hearing it associated with school libraries at the CSLA conference in November and continued through this adventure. I like the idea that the library changes with the times. It isn't just a recepticle for what is past, but reinvents itself as new ideas come along.

In the OCLC article by Dr. Wendy Schultz (To A Temporary Place In Time) there is a quote I love. "Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory."

Our students are definately digital natives. We need to provide libraries that speak their language and materials that appeal to them while, at the same time meeting the needs of curriculum and learning styles. But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. So the task for school library staff is to embrace the features of 2.0 while continuing to encourage (and sometimes even coax) books into the hands of children.

What will my school library look like ten years from now? My hope is that it will still be filled with children eagerly reading...delighted faces discovering exciting new worlds on the printed page AND the computer screen.