My First Computer

The Commodore 128d.

Gizmodo has a great little article on remembering your first time using a computer.  My first go round was a Commodore 64 when I was in middle school in the 80′s.  My parents bought one as well, and we used to play some early games on it.  Later on the school got Apples, and at home we upgraded to the Commodore 128d.  I was a whiz with that thing.  I was programming music melodies into it, and almost got my folks to commit to a modem, but they weren’t buying it.    War Games must have just turned them off to what I could have done online.   God help me, I could have been a terror.
But all of this nostalgia makes me realize that this is all part of a moment, and one that we’ll not experience again.  The children who come to my library are exposed to computers before they can read on their own, while their brains are still forming.  Remember the iPad baby?  She will always live in a world where the iPad is a method of reading things online.  Sure, iPads may be a fad, and may fall out of fashion, but there’s really no turning back the clock for working with computers, reading documents online, playing games, socializing with friends through the internet, and on and on and on.

Every year Beloit college does the incoming freshman mindset list.  Theoretically this is supposed to give the professors perspective on what their students are like, by placing their life experiences within context of popular culture and technological advancement.  No child born today will be able to remember his or her first computer, because they will have used a computer before they can develop long term memories.

I don’t necessarily see a problem with this, but I feel this kind of nostalgic question has to be contextualized.   Sure they may be able to remember outdated models of computers that their families had at home, but that’s about it.  We’ve seen the last generation who can actually answer this question.

Early Literacy: Print vs. iPad

Watch this video.

The author of this video implies that his daughter has been coded by Steve Jobs and that she has already ditched print media.  The child attempts to interact with the magazine in a way that is reminiscent of the iPad and that she gives up because “print doesn’t work.”

The child in this video is about one year old, at least that’s what is assumed by the folks over at NY Daily News where I saw this piece.  I agree that the child looks about less than a year old, and that’s really the important piece of this story.

The folks over at Early Stages, a childhood developmental testing center here in DC, have developed a really fantastic handout about the milestones that all children should be reaching by different ages.  Around 7 months to 1 year old children are learning how to interact with and manipulate objects properly in their surroundings.  That’s what I believe we’re seeing here.

In that developmental phase children are trying to understand how different objects work.  We as adults know that iPads and Magazines work differently, and we manipulate them differently with our hands. But we have grown up in a world where those things were also taught to us.  Many of us don’t remember how we learned to read a book, because that educational experience happens at about this age of 6 months and on. So, it’s not that the magazine is “broken.”  Rather, it is that no one has shown the child how to manipulate the pages of a magazine to see all the pictures inside.

A child at this age doesn’t understand the difference between an square icon on a piece of glass and a square on a piece of paper.  They don’t know that they might not act differently, and their very limited experience in life has not given them any reason to suggest that they would.  That’s why we see the child attempting to “click” on the boxes on the page, or trying to “pinch” and blow up an image.  She just hasn’t developed the subtlety to make that distinction between paper and digital.

I do think this says something, however, about the future of reading.  Interactivity is a huge part of contemporary reading.  All of the heaviest hitting places on the web are interactive.  The enhanced eBook movement is an attempt to incorporate that into the process of reading.  It’s so much more than just sitting down with a book, it’s sitting down with a book, a collection of movies, a dictionary/encyclopedia and some critical works just in case you don’t quite follow along.  Not to mention that you can fiddle with the look and feel of the reading experience until it fits your own personalized style, provided they’ve given you the option to do that.  The printed book just can’t compare to that, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t have to.

There is no reason why we cannot fully embrace both print literacy and digital literacy with children.  The world they are going to grow into is probably going to slowly migrate into a digital playground, but not without a lot of stumbling blocks.  Print isn’t going away tomorrow, and magazines aren’t useless.  Well, maybe a few of them are useless…  But the point is, if you are raising a child in today’s world, it’s a mistake to think that their inability to manipulate a magazine is a sign that they are now wired for iPads.  No, it’s a sign that you need to show that child how you open a book, turn a page, and read along the line.  Books, magazines and newspapers are still a part of our world, and they probably will be a for a long time.  Make sure that child learns how they are different and how they are the same, because that’s what builds up all those skills she’s going to need when she starts school.

And I’ll bet she’ll probably need to read a book or two in school.

Why The Public Library Should Always Remain Free

My voice is only one of hundreds who have already chimed in about this ridiculous piece of flame bait from The Atlantic on charging public library users a per item borrowing fee.  I’m sure that someone has already said what I’m going to say, probably in the epic comments thread, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Barry Greenfield’s piece suffers from one fundamental flaw: Capitalism.  Public Libraries, as all public institutions, are inherently experiments in Socialism.  We utilize public funds, to provide a resource that is unavailable to those who do not have the means to procure them, i.e. knowledge, education and culture via our shared literary heritage (and I include film and music in that definition of “literary”). Capitalizing on that access, even in the smallest way, is a barrier to access that should never be tolerated.

The philanthropic push by Andrew Carnegie was about creating opportunity for those who, like himself, lacked the ability to live the American Dream of social mobility.  The dream of the public library was, and still is, to provide public access to those things that provide the means to achieve social mobility.  Carnegie understood that to get ahead, one needed to be educated.  But access to schools and universities was extremely limited, and mostly reserved for an already wealthy elite, perpetuating a ruling class.  The main factor in this class divide was monetary.  Those who cannot afford to purchase books, cannot read them. The creation of the Free Public Library broke the monopoly on education for the American elite, and allowed those born into lower classes the ability to learn beyond their raising and the circumstances of their birth.   The Free Public Library still does this today, and here’s how.

Early Literacy

The area that the public library is most known for, is also the most crucial to the development of our society’s future.  The public library offers programs for parents and caregivers of very young children that expose them to human contact, expanding the language that they hear, and engaging them in complex social environments that prepare them to be ready to read and interact in a pre-K and Kindergarten school environment.  Children from birth to age two are developing the complex array of brain synapses that will enable them to learn when the are older, and research has shown that children who are engaged with books in a positive way at an early age become better readers, and ultimately better learners when in school.  Children between the ages of 3-5 are engaged in amassing a large amount of vocabulary so that when they encounter written words for the first time that they will be able to recognize them, because they will have heard them before.  Lap Time programs for infants and toddlers and Story Time programs for pre-school age children are exactly the right environment to build those skills. If you’re curious about the research check out Saroj Ghoting’s website on early literacy for children.

But beyond those single hours per week, parents and caregivers need to have access to the books that will engage their children.  The average picture book costs between $12.00 and $17.00.  No parent on their own would be able to provide the exposure to the wide variety of material needed to give their child an exceptionally deep vocabulary.  Most parents and caregivers will check out about 15 books per week from the public library.  That amount in sales would have cost them between $180.00 to $255.00.  Some of the more affluent parents I know are already shelling out thousands in day care.  There is no way they could afford to buy those books.  And children from families living in poverty can’t even come close to making up that difference.  To ask a parent to spend $10.00 a week in library books is to ask them if they are willing to make another sacrifice they can’t afford.  This will put their children at yet another disadvantage, this one a fundamentally developmental challenge.

Access to Educational Resources

School libraries around the country are being slashed as “budget drainers” (like music and art before them) and school librarians are being interrogated about their contribution to the educational process.  As more and more schools lose access to educational material, public libraries are pulling up the slack.  While we can’t provide an entire classroom with a set of textbooks, we can provide access to educational databases that students can use to supplement what few resources can be provided by their school.  These resources can also help educators who need to prepare their students to be ready to do online research and evaluate resources so that they are ready for college entrance exams and college itself.  The other important thing the public library does is provide low-filtered internet access to children.  Most public schools run software that will block legitimately invaluable websites like Wikipedia and Google, because of the potential for children to access harmful information.  The Public Library provides a much more open environment where children can explore the complexity of the internet with their parents, the librarian, their friends and on their own.  This gives them a richer media environment than any school can provide or pay for, and we provide this for free.

Adult Literacy

Beyond children, America is still grappling with adult populations who are functionally illiterate.  And in today’s text heavy, web centric society, illiteracy is even more detrimental than ever.  Adults who cannot read cannot apply for numerous government assistance programs, because most all of them are migrating online.  One of the most common uses of public computers is applying for jobs (many of them entry level), and filing for unemployment.  But public libraries have long been a home for adult literacy programs, both for those who have never learned to read and for those non-native speakers of English who need to learn the language to function in our society.  Paying for this kind of service is often times impossible, not to mention demoralizing to a person who already experiences shame for his/her problem.

Adult Basic Education

Another of the more common services we offer are adult basic education classes to help people pass the GED.  High School dropout rates are slowly decreasing, but still a major problem, especially among minority students.  Those who do not have a high school diploma or GED are at extreme economic disadvantage.  There is an ever widening salary gulf between those who have a high school diploma and those who have a Bachelor’s degree, and with degree inflation on the rise due to the extremities of the economy having a high school diploma or GED becomes more and more critical in order to get to the next step, college.  Public libraries have long been places for people to get access to the resources they need to educate themselves to pass the GED.  Good GED test prep books can cost between $20.00 and $30.00.  Not to mention special practice booklets to help students pass difficult parts of the exam.  Not only do we provide the resources, but many public libraries also provide courses to help students pass the GED as well.

Access to Technology

Just say “digital divide” and it feels like we’re back in the 90′s.  But the reality is that the digital divide is still as real and strong as ever.  With broadband costs on the rise and computer costs still a hurdle for many families, the internet may seem like a luxury item.  But as mentioned before, there are a host of reasons why people need to use the internet and they are only increasing.  One of the most common requests I have dealt with at the information desk has been to help an adult, who has never been online ever, fill out a job application on a web form.  And these jobs are not for like executive administrative assistant or CIO at a Fortune 500 company.  I’m talking about jobs for food service, grocery clerks, and janitors.  The world has so fundamentally changed that even the lowest paid position at a company requires at least a rudimentary level of tech savvy.  You have to have an email address, an electronic copy of a resume, and the skill to navigate numerous websites with radically different and unique forms.   Not to mention the tenacity to come and check your email on a daily basis to see if you’ve gotten a hit on a job lead.  Without this skill, people remain unemployed, and the U.S. economy keeps going down.

Public Meeting Spaces

One of the other extraordinarily valuable assets the public library offers is empty space for meetings. I cannot begin to tell you how important this is.  Meetings at the library have provided access to non-profits and start-up businesses to gather collaborators and investors, brought tutors to students, helped people to engage in civil debate and political organizing, space to adequately train volunteers, and more.  Many of these places need a space that they can access for free so they can get the leg up they need to help develop our society at a grassroots level.  Some public libraries charge for this, but many do not, again, because money is a barrier to access, stifling development and change.

Cultural Exploration

We live in a global society.  Anyone with half a mind to watch the nightly news knows that.  But not everyone is exposed to what it means to be a part of a global society.  Public Libraries provide access to language learning materials, books, music and films from other parts of the world, and programming that exposes people to cultures that they never would have known existed.  From indigenous American traditions to countries on the opposite side of the world.  People can delve into nearly any culture of the world, and via the internet, engage with that culture as well.  Most people today are more likely to know about the ripple effects of the U.S. housing bubble or the Greek economic collapse than they were just 20 years ago.  Access to the internet has made that possible.  Again, a service we provide for free.  As Seth Godin commented about a week ago some people only come to the library to borrow videos.  And that is absolutely true.  But the videos we offer range far and wide; from Madea Goes to Jail to Götterdämmerung to the entire set of Ken Burns’ The Civil War.  We reserve no judgment on what people choose to watch, just as we reserve no judgment on what they choose to read.  But some offerings can never be captured as a book, and must be experienced.  Providing access to cultural treasures in music and film is just as relevant as learning how to read.

I could go on and on and on about how bad of an idea this $.50 fee is, but you get the picture.  The fact of the matter is that public libraries are free and public for a reason; because our society believes that social mobility is gained by access to education, and that barriers to access keep our population impoverished.  The free public library is the only resource available to our residents that can provide this.  We pay for it via our taxes because we believe in its mission to help those who cannot afford to help themselves.  We believe that when we have a well educated, self-motivated, and more affluent society, everyone wins.  There are many things that should never be monetized, and the free public library is one of them.

Yes it’s Socialist, and no, that’s not a bad word.