Category: Improve Society

  • Reading the Hard Stuff

    Reading the Hard Stuff

    We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. -ALA’s The Freedom to Read Statement

  • Informed Voters

    Informed Voters

    Photo credit: The featured image on this post is Vote by Theresa Thompson, made available via a Creative Commons 2.0 license by personalincom.org/vote.  I became a librarian because I am passionate about empowering people by connecting them with information they can use to positive effect in their lives and communities. With the election fast approaching, we all continue to…

  • Book Review & Library Lesson: Tribe

    Book Review & Library Lesson: Tribe

    This book…will serve as a valuable learning tool to emphasize to young writers the importance of maintaining a clear main idea in their writing and of utilizing an organized system of citation to give credence to their work.

  • Book Review: Antifragile

    I tackled Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile slowly–both to reflect on Taleb’s ideas, and because reading this book is like hanging out with a brilliant and obnoxious friend who is best taken in small doses. Nearly a year later, reading the book’s Conclusion, I found Taleb had articulated exactly why I couldn’t stay away from this…

  • Thankful for an Opportunity to Learn

    I first saw the Facebook Data Science What are we most thankful for? chart on the Mental Floss Facebook feed. I was fascinated by the topic, the data, and, as always, the comments following the “share.” I like seeing this sort of data science at work. I found Facebook’s “thankful data” fun because it offers a snapshot of something quirky, and positive, about how…

  • My First MOOC

    MoMA’s Art and Inquiry I’m half-way through my first MOOC, and I am so happy I picked a good one. Last semester, one of my classes considered MOOCs for different ages and types of learners, and during my investigation and learning I saw that the Museum of Modern Art in New York offered an “Art…

  • Wondering about Your Library

    Today I’m sharing an advocacy video I created for my Technologies class. In my “real” advocacy video, I would include photos from my school library. In this practice video, I enjoyed including photos from my volunteer experiences, library fieldwork, and visits to the local library with my preschool classes. Enjoy!

  • CyberHeroes & Anti-Cyberbullying

    In my last post, Intellectual Freedom & Internet Filtering, I shared a few ideas about how school librarians can help schools create and implement policies that both keep students safe online and provide them opportunities to develop the 21st Century Skills they need to successfully navigate our increasingly participatory culture. In that post, I referred to…

  • Library Learning Blogs

    Teacher-librarians can use blogs in their school libraries to connect with students and the community, to support learning standards, and to give students a voice in collection and program development. I like the idea of a blog written by the school librarian(s) that promotes library activities and resources; a blog written by students in which…