Information Literacy

"If people were better informed about social networking sites and knew and used basic Internet safety tips, the cloud of fear may decline."—Robert Doyle, Executive Director of the Illinois Library Association
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In the days of yore it was not uncommon for universities in Britain and the U.S. to have a policy called "rustication." If a student acted up academically, he would be sent away from the university for a few months to think about his transgressions and, ideally, rededicate himself to the life of the university. As the term "rustication" implies, the concept in its pure form involves being sent down to the farm. I doubt that many rusticated scholars, such as the young Milton, Dryden, and Swinburne, actually slopped any hogs, but the thought of them knee-deep in muck provides some measure of solace and encouragement for us all.
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Last Thursday's New York Times contained an article (a no-cost subscription is required) that provides a progress report on the $100 laptop initiative, officially known as One Laptop per Child (OLPC). The project is based at MIT's Media Lab and was first announced in January 2005. Led by Nicholas Negroponte, the OLPC project proclaims its main outcome goal thus: “a unique harmony of form and function; a flexible, ultra low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable machine with which nations of the emerging world can leapfrog decades of development—immediately transforming the content and quality of their children's learning.”
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It's already mid-July and I'm still thinking about the programs, news, and events from the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans three weeks ago. This means either that it was an unusually important conference, or that I'm slow on the uptake and/or have serious conference closure issues.
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On the ever-informative LibraryLaw Blog Wednesday, Mary Minow posts a three-question interview with the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) executive director Beth Yoke about DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006). In it, Yoke provides her 2 cents on the proposed legislation and her experience at the hearing. (Minow has stated that she believes the "law is blatantly unconstitutional," but warns, "that doesn't mean it won't get passed.")
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Can we claim that there's a difference between watching television and playing a video game? or reading a book and surfing the Web? or writing a letter and writing an e-mail? or having a conversation and participating in some form of Instant Messaging? Does the mobility of telecommunications shift our everyday lives? Are we more individualized in contemporary culture than we were when people watched television in the 1960s and `70s?
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