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65% of college freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week or not at all

The percentage of non-readers among these students has nearly doubled—climbing 18 points since they graduated from high school

By the time they become college seniors, one in three students read nothing at all for pleasure in a given week.

Libraries are reinventing themselves as content becomes more accessible online and their role becomes less about housing tomes and more about connecting learners and constructing knowledge.

Libraries are reinventing themselves as content becomes more accessible online and their role becomes less about housing tomes and more about connecting learners and constructing knowledge

Printed books still play a critical role in supporting learners, but digital technologies offer additional pathways to learning and content acquisition. Students and teachers no longer need a library simply for access. Instead, they require a place that encourages participatory learning and allows for co-construction of understanding from a variety of sources.

earch engines, index less than 1% of the Web

information in the deep Web is of higher quality, that is, less “noise” and more focused. If you are searching for information using only surface Web search engines, you are missing 99% of the content of the Web. Moreover, 95% of the deep Web is free publicly accessible information

The deep Web is not a substitute for surface search engines, but a complement to a complete search approach.

What is Web 2.0? Learn it in 5 minutes or less   At Learn it in 5, you'll learn what is Web 2.0, and strategies for using Web 2.0 technology in the digital classroom - all in 5 minutes or less. Learn it in 5 is a powerful library of how-to videos, produced by technology teachers, for the purpose of helping teachers and students create classroom strategies for today's 21st century's digital classroom. These step-by-step how-to videos walk teachers through Web 2.0 technology, demonstrating how to use Web 2.0 applications like blogs, social networks, podcasts, interactive videos, wikis, slide sharing and much more.

This has been a tough week for open education, at least in higher education.  First came the news that Georgia Tech has taken down a 14-year-old student wiki site that allowed discussions and collaboration across courses and across semesters.  Next came the news of more details on proposed intellectual property laws in Congress, dubbed SOPA for Stop Online Piracy Act, that are being drafted in a draconian manner to protect content providers while taking away reasonable “safe harbor” protections for internet site operators.  Despite the nominal differences in these two pieces of legislation, I think that the Georgia Tech FERPA decision has shown just how dangerous SOPA could be to higher education.

Bryan Alexander recently summarized a Google+ hangout discussion on the topic of SOPA’s potential affect on higher education, and I think the group hit on some very important points. Under the bill’s terms aggrieved IP holders can cut financial support to such sites, or have them shut down, or have their Web locations blocked at the Domain Name Services (DNS) level.  The US attorney general can apparently create a blacklist of offending Web sites.  Internet service providers (ISPs) would no longer have “safe harbor” protection; instead, they would be liable for content whose publication and access they facilitated. [snip] Safe harbor - this may be the crux of the matter for schools.  If ISPs no longer have safe harbor protection, campuses acting as ISPs will have extra incentive to police existing content, and to enforce more scrutiny of new creations. IT departments will have more work, much as librarians.  Financially strapped institutions will have additional problems. [snip] Fair use - SOPA makes no provision for that 1976 doctrine.  Indeed, schools might find supporting fair use less appealing if infringement risks are more salient.    Risk aversion might lead to decreased fair use claims.

A series of studies that have had a great deal of influence on the research and decision-making discussions concerning school library media programs have grown from the work of a team in Colorado—Keith Curry Lance, Marcia J. Rodney, and Christine Hamilton-Pennell (2000).

Recent school library impact studies have also identified, and generated some evidence about, potential "interventions" that could be studied. The questions might at first appear rather familiar: How much, and how, are achievement and learning improved when . . . librarians collaborate more fully with other educators? libraries are more flexibly scheduled? administrators choose to support stronger library programs (in a specific way)? library spending (for something specific) increases?

high priority should be given to reaching teachers, administrators, and public officials as well as school librarians and school library advocates.

Several information problem-solving models exist for teaching and reinforcing the research, problem-solving, and writing processes. The Big Six information skills model (Big6) is one that is primarily aimed at kindergarten through twelfth-grade students. This model is intended to foster the acquisition of research, problem-solving, and metacognitive skills through the cooperation of both school library media specialists and classroom teachers. While a strong anecdotal record exists supporting the use of Big6, empirical research support is less evident in library and education literature. This study examines the effect of Big6 on a class of eighth-grade students asked to research and write about events surrounding the African-American Civil Rights movement.