I have survived the writing of two more papers for two more Masters subjects in my M.Ed. It was a crazy last few weeks of December since I had to work on these through part of the winter holiday when the staff at my local school were away.

I received feedback for my ETL503 (Collections Management) subject and am not very happy. Let's just say, that after reading the feedback, I now realize I was supposed to comment on many further areas of selections and acquisitions than I did. Fair enough. However, I find it very difficult to do, so considering I don't work for a school, and to boot, my local school's staff were all away on holidays. The only way I'd know how these things are done at my local school would be if I worked there, or worked closely with the librarian.

There are two major realizations I'm having about this subject. First, I have to "learn" about so many topics on my own. Fair enough, I am a Master's student, and I am an experienced learner. However, For this course, I am consistently finding that we learn about things by just researching for information and reading about them. It's like I'm paying tuition to be told to learn about a topic. I don't find that my instructors do much to facilitate my learning process other than lay out a curriculum path, give me topics to read and study, and give me assignments. I mean, if one could get a hold of the subject overview and modules, they could complete the same work for free. I really wish this masters course were more interactive, with discussion groups...not forums, but live chat groups, or study partnerships, or something where I can interact with other students. I always feel like I have to just find materials and read about a subject to learn anything. I'm not a textbook/"reading" learner, but in this case, it's the only modality addressed.

Second, I wish I'd known that ETL503 would require a significant amount of collaboration or involvement with a local school in order to get a grasp of their selection/acquisition process and policy development. This is especially important for us students who are NOT working in libraries already. If I knew this in advance, I would not have taken it over a school holiday (believe me, it would've made being 8 months pregnant a lot easier). I probably would have waited until I was doing my practicum at participating with a school on a regular basis.

I just spent some time considering the topic of censorship. My first thoughts were about free and open access to information. If I, as a librarian, have a professional commitment to intellectual freedom and free access to information, I foresee some problems with my particular situation.

First off, intellectual freedom and free access to information is strongly supported in democratic society. I completely support it as well. While the school I work(ed) supports democratic beliefs, I can't say that my host country does. How am I supposed to write this into my library policies when doing so can contradict the beliefs of the country in which I live? Please, I'd love suggestions here.

I read an article by Doug Johnson who mostly addressed the issue of internet censorship in schools. My reaction to this is unique I believe, because our school does not censor sites that many schools do. However, we are faced with great censorship problems at a national level. Although I appreciate Johnson's suggestions on ways to possibly address the problem, they are assuming that I might be able to reason with policy makers. In my case, there isn't a fat chance that's going to happen.

Secondly, Both Moody and Jenkinson's articles really shed some light on the practice of censorship by librarians. Essentially, we may have a tendency to censor books or resources because "someone" will find them offensive. I fall into this boat. I have been known to tell our librarian about resources that I thought were inappropriate, or pass along messages from parents who had comments about certain books. While reading these articles, I was forced to think about whose standards I was using, when deciding what was inappropriate.

For example, there was a European book in our library (in their language) which had cartoon illustrations, and it was about being at the beach. Many of the characters were nude. My initial reaction was that (as a teacher of 9 year-olds) my students would grab this book and share it with their friends and do nothing but laugh at it. I thought the book was inappropriate for young kids. However, I know that in Europe, nudity is not always as big of a deal as it is for Americans. I was applying my own standards, and probably the standards of many American children, on my international school. I was falling into what Jenkinson calls "community standards" and was assuming that the standard we employ is one where no one is offended by anything. In reality, people always face the chance of be offended if exposed to different points of view. That is how we grow and learn, and become more well-rounded open-minded individuals. Of course, when we face adversity, we should be coached, guided, or have the chance to learn and ask questions. Those are learning opportunities. However, sometimes we just want to avoid this.

In thinking about this, I continue to wonder how such problems are addressed. I suppose something should probably be written into our policy, defining what is unacceptable, and what to do when faced with a challenge. What is our stance? It would be easier to defend my practice if it were backed by policy approved by the school board. I'm just not exactly sure how to go about this. Samples? Suggestions?

References:
Jenkinson, D. (2002). Selection and censorship: It’s simple arithmetic. School libraries in Canada, 2(4), 22

Johnson, D. (2010) Censorship by omission.  Library Media Connection,  Vol. 28(4), 48-49

Moody, K. (2005). Covert censorship in libraries: A discussion paper. Australian Library Journal, 54(2), 138-147. Retrieved from http://www.alia.org.au/publishing/alj/54.2/full.text/moody.html

In reading about collection management for my ETL503 class, and in combination with some of the research topics proposed by students in EER500, I've come across a few thoughts on the topic of eBooks and young readers. There's no denying the increased amount of digital resources available through the internet and through our libraries today. The question for many right now is, are we losing our physical paper resources? Are digital resources taking over?


Personally, I think about this too. We have a ton of physical books on our personal bookshelf. However, I rarely read them. We've purchased a Kindle from Amazon and use that quite a bit. With my studies at CSU, I rely exclusively on digital materials... well, aside from textbooks I'm required to purchase. If I can get them digitally, I would do that instead. I read all of my articles online (pdfs), so finding a good pdf reader that I can mark up as if it were paper is particularly useful (I use an application called Skim right now). However, I depend on my laptop to read my course studies. It's not always convenient. I'm still looking for a better solution. Transferring my pdfs to my Kindle is not worth it. The text is just miniature and difficult to work with. Not an ideal study solution.


I tend to believe that libraries will go more and more digital. Will they rid themselves entirely of books? Some libraries are. My instincts tell me that we might be able to go more digital (I think we will), but I'm not sure if this is a good idea for young readers (children under about 10 years old). I think digital reading should be phased in around 8-9-10 years old, and that they might not need physical books as much, say around middle school or high school. However, for young students, I think that being able to navigate the whole page, flip pages, feel the pages, point at the words, etc. is very important. eReaders lack some of the things that books have. Fuzzy images, colorful illustrations. My 1 year old loves to touch the fuzzy snowflakes and open the flap books she has. We can't do away with that.


I'm curious to know what some of the research says out there. There are some fellow students in my EER500 class (research methodologies) who are interested in that topic. I am too, but I am choosing a different topic (I think). 


One of my classmates in ETL503 asked: "would it really matter if your child sat on your knee and shared beautiful illustrations and rich language that happened to be on a Kindle? Do literacy practices really require real books or could the same be achieved using an electronic device?" (Gilchrist, S., ETL503 forum posting to Module 2 on Nov. 24, 2010)


Something I've said in response was: "When asked to think about eBooks, I am not entirely convinced that going electronic is best for our youngest readers. I have a 1 year old and she gets enjoyment out of touching and feeling (remember the texture books too) her books. For older and capable readers, I think ebooks might be okay though. 
eBooks are just so new... I think a Kindle is blaaahhhh for little kids (I have one). However, something as colorful and sharp as the iPad might be a better alternative. But yes, access is such an important issue. It's still in its infancy and constantly changing. I don't think we're very close to a standardized ebook format yet either. That's yet another hurdle.

There are some people in EER500 looking further into the research on eBooks and young readers. I'm curious to learn about the information they find."