LISNews: Librarian News

New desks, lunch tables and automatic flushing toilets are nice, but several students at Yorktown High School would rather have old desks and tables and manual flushing toilets if it will help the librarians in the district keep their jobs.

About 20 of those students -- with personal or library books in hand -- showed up at Morrow's Meadow across the street from Yorktown Middle School to protest the possibility of losing the high school librarian.

"Students can survive flushing their own toilets, but it wouldn't be a school without our librarians," protest organizer and senior Ryan Brown said.

Obtaining biometric data from pupils, often without parental knowledge, shows how far this technology has already infiltrated society. The Guardian Reports last week, news emerged that Primrose Hill primary school in north London had been fingerprinting pupils without their parents' consent. It seemed shocking yet should not have come as such a surprise. Micro Librarian Systems' Junior Librarian has been marketed in the UK since 2002 and is estimated to have fingerprinted hundreds of thousands of British children.

Interesting column from the Detroit Free Press, in which a community college instructor offers her observations regarding the epidemic of non-reading in her state and nationwide.

Over and over, my students -- all adults -- tell me that too many school districts neglect to include provocative selections within their curriculum. The collection of choices made and the way reading materials are handled fail to inspire. Why educators would undertake such a questionable course is murky, but the results are not. Michigan community college students struggle to speak in complete sentences and are challenged when asked to write coherently. Will they perform any better during job interviews? Is this next generation of workers prepared to create cutting-edge products and services?

She also comments:

It's easy to buy picture books featuring the gentle antics of big red dogs, but it's much more difficult to pick out thought-provoking selections for a 16-year-old when a parent hasn't read a book since high school -- if ever.

Thanks to Reading Today Daily for the link.

Susanna Kaysen Says that she's "honored" her writing is causing such a fuss.
Orono Superintendent Kelly Clenchy pulled "Girl, Interrupted" from a freshman English class at Orono High School the day after he received a complaint about the book from a parent.Her publicist had told her the basics, the author said, but she was surprised at the furor, since "Girl, Interrupted" has never created controversy like this in the past as far as she knew.