Lines in the sand - Pt 1
Why do librarians draw lines in the sand? Is there something indoctrinating during library education programs that creates intellectual warriors or does the profession attract radical militants?
Take one recent issue:
*Wikipedia. Many librarians immediately began a very reactionary rant about how an interactive tool is inaccurate. Of course, there are problems with users creating inaccurate or biased information. That is true with any tool and in any situation. (Look at the blogs and list discussions and search LM_NET’s archives.) Rather than deciding if this is a situation where the line should be drawn and students forbidden to use the tool, we should be looking at these considerations:
…What benefits does this tool offer my students?
…What problems should I anticipate and plan training for?
…How can I take the basic premise behind how this tool works and go further?
…How can I enable access when and where my students need it?
…How can I share this knowledge with others in my profession?
I confess that I now use Wikipedia. Try locating good information on kings & queens for kindergarten students! The print encyclopedia articles are laughable. Publishers really haven’t created interesting materials on this in the nonfiction section for lower readers so everything we find has to be translated. After two years of reacting to the questions generated by a class and relying upon the personal knowledge of my library assistant (from Cambridge) and her personal library, I was relieved to find excellent links in wikipedia. I explained to the students that since we live in a democracy we don’t own enough print materials on monarchies so we have to connect to the world of knowledge. The links were relevant and took us to a wide variety of information to answer their questions:
How do you get to be the king? Where exactly do kings and queens live? How much money do they make? Do knights really battle dragons? What do you have to do to become a knight? What do they call their kids and don’t they have last names? Does the queen wear a crown everyday? Are there kings and queens in different countries? How many prince and princesses are there in the world?
