Newsweek says Don’t Be Deceived; Even A High-Tech Library Still Needs Shelves Of Books And Journals.
“Who made the decision that everyone who is not computer-literate-very computer-literate, in the ease of our new library-could be left in the cold? Who is pretending that men and women from low-income neighborhoods, schooled without computers and without computers at home, can use this library? And how many decades will pass before everyone who graduated from pre-computer colleges is dead, and until inner-city and rural public schools have computers in sufficient numbers to teach all their children how to use them? Indeed, precious few minority faces are to be seen at the computer stations in our fancy new library.”
from 1997??
this future where generations of poor kids finally learn to use computers came pretty quickly; our library is filled with black and hispanic kids and not the “precious few” mentioned in 1997.
so I guess our time is up….
1997?
Where did you pull this article from and why? 1997? What point?
A Tangled Info Web
Don’t Be Deceived; Even A High-Tech Library Still Needs Shelves Of Books And Journals
By Ingrid Eisenstadter | NEWSWEEK
Feb 17, 1997 Issue
1997-2008
Sorry, 11 years later this point still needs to be made. I’m a librarian at an inner-city middle school where we are admonished about how little we incorporate technology into lessons, when we have limited resources and kids who do not have access at home. Some are fortunate enough to have parents who will, and have the transportation, to take them to the public library, but they are in the minority. I don’t know where y’all live, but the digital divide is alive, well, and widening.
It sure is
It is definitely widening, as opportunity gaps inevitably do when left (i.e. laissez…) to their own devices. Advantages and disadvantages both tend to be cumulative. Which is not to say that printed reading materials are not still necessary. They don’t require batteries, and we may be in for a power failure.
For the record, I’m posting this from the Warren (MI) Public Library. There are (including myself) six patrons online, three appear to be caucasian, and the other three African American.