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Welcome to the Post-Literate Future

October 23, 2012 by Melissa Rushing

Reading and writing are doomed.

Literacy as we know it is over.

Welcome to the post-literate future.

No – it’s not April 1st.  Beyond Literacy: Exploring a Post-Literate Future is the name of a new freely accessible e-book published by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Ontario Library Association.  The site provides opportunities for readers to comment and contribute to what will undoubtedly be a vigorous and passionate conversation about whether reading and writing as we know them are really disappearing.  What will replace them?  What is already replacing them?

Do you read?  Do you write?  Is texting writing (by the way-the WordPress spell checker thinks texting is a spelling error).  If we no longer use reading and writing as the most common way we communicate, we do/will we use?  Is spoken language a kind of literacy?  Lots of questions.

I don’t have many answers.  It is hard for me to conjure up the image of a world without reading and writing.  I still send letters through the mail.  I always read something before I turn out the light before going to sleep.  And the author isn’t claiming to have all the answers either.  But the questions are provocative and worth thinking about.

What do you think?  Will traditional reading and writing eventually disappear?  In what ways are reading and writing important to you (or not)?  What will a post-literate society look like?  Join the dialog.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: literacy, reading, writing

Beyond the Required Readings

September 29, 2012 by Melissa Rushing

This semester I’m teaching the first course I’ve ever taught at St. Mary’s for credit.  Given that I arrived here in 1981, it’s obvious I’m a slow starter.  I’m teaching a First-Year Seminar Course called “Are You What You Eat?”  As I prepared for the course I did a lot of reading in books I own or books that are in the library collection.  (Yes, some of them were added to the collection because they lent themselves [groan] to the topic.)  I found a lot of really interesting columns in two publications I read regularly – The New York Times online, and the Chronicle of Higher Education online.  And, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention receiving some great suggestions for other items from Asif Dowla that he passed along to me after we started discussing the course.

The result of this is that I’ve got a lot of online material bookmarked for possible readings for the course.  I can easily export the bookmarks to a file to share with the students, so they can see the cornucopia of offerings available at the click of a link.  (Some of these have actually been looked over by some students.  Two groups of students to date have selected from the possible readings items they wanted to have the entire class read as a basis for discussions they were responsible for leading.)  Because of the rich possibilities of various books I thought they might find of interest, I have posted excerpts from several on e-reserve, with the thought that perhaps some students might be motivated to look beyond the chosen selections to explore further.  In addition, many of the online items themselves have embedded links that, if pursued, connect the reader to more information – the modern incarnation of the (oft-ignored) footnotes of a hard-copy text.

There have been articles and blogs and books about how our students lead busy lives and how much of their time isn’t focused on academics.  I remind myself that particularly for first-year students they have an entire social world they have entered that is, if their experience reflects my own when I went off to college, transforming their lives.  I understand that when they seek information, when they read, it is often to find a specific answer, or to meet the demands of a particular assignment or task.  Three sources for a paper including one book and one article from an academic journal.  Check.  One discussion thread entry on Blackboard posting a question you have that was raised by the required reading.  Check.  Pick one of three readings and provide an abstract and citation according to “X” style.  Check.

I’ve really enjoyed pulling all of the course material together.  I continue to add to links to readings, and more items to the list of DVDs and books related to the course that I’ve provided them.  I reshape the class schedule to accommodate new directions that seem worth further time and exploration.  Our libraries, our online databases, and web resources, have made it possible for me to pursue my varied interests and questions that evolved into my first course offering.  And I hope that as my students join me in our ongoing journey of discovery that perhaps something outside the required course materials will catch the interest of a student and pull that student into an exploration that helps answer a question, think about a topic in greater depth, or scratches an “intellectual curiosity” itch.  And, thinking about it, given the students I have in this class and what they’ve said, this process has begun.  I’m optimistic.

Filed Under: Musings

Is Anybody Out There?

September 17, 2012 by Melissa Rushing

With props to Pink Floyd , we want to know . . . is anyone out there? Is anyone out there? We tried a blog a few years ago and quickly discovered that no one was reading it. So we abandoned it. The work on our new website got us thinking more about how to connect with our students, our faculty, and even with librarians at other colleges and universities. And that brought us to “Beyond the Bookshelves.”

Most of us are reading blogs these days. Lots of blogs. Thanks to Google Reader following blogs is easy.  So we decided to go for it and try again. This fall there has been a lot to write about.  The new library website, digital access to The Point News, Kindles, chat reference, and so much more. But is a library blog just for announcements?

I have questions, and ideas, and opinions (lots of opinions) about what is happening to libraries and all of us who love them and use them.  Why does the full-text of journal articles seem to appear and disappear from those databases we all love?  What is the future of printed anything?  The online version of a journal often costs as much (or sometimes more) than the printed version – what’s up with that?  And why isn’t this stuff all free anyway?

These are the questions that keep me up at night – that and whether the NY Mets will ever get their act together.

Is anybody out there? Give us a sign.  Leave a comment, start a conversation, ask questions. If you have an idea for a blog post, let us know. If you have been reading but not commenting, let us know.

I’m not above offering a shameless promotion. The first student to email me, call me (x4267), or come by my office
(LI 236) to tell me you have read this blog post gets the beverage of their choice at the Grind.  This offer expires on Monday, September 24, 2012.

Don’t turn us into another brick in the wall.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: blogging

“Untitled”

August 13, 2012 by Melissa Rushing

Last Wednesday I saved a file on my computer – an incomplete draft of a document to post on our library blog.  I just took a quick look at it this afternoon since my PDA (remember those) showed that today I was supposed to submit an item.  I had written about information literacy, my thoughts on its role in the four basic liberal arts skills in first-year seminars (I’m going to be teaching a section of FYS this fall) and how much more is involved with information literacy (and its integral companion skill, critical thinking) than the academic research aspects of locating and evaluating information.  On re-reading, I liked one sentence:  “In fact, most of the information we encounter or seek out may only indirectly find its way into our academic writing, or more likely, not enter into the academic realm at all.”

I just took a look at my recent web browser history (which includes Google searches.)  Items include:  This is Hardcore Fest, August 9, 10, 11, 12 2012; H20 (American Band) Wikipedia; Whiners of Average Intelligence (from the Chronicle of Higher Education); Services for Faculty (SMCM Library); ProQuest Migration Platform Center; USA Basketball: 2012 U.S. Olympic Women’s Basketball Team Roster; Home – LibGuides at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.  Just did a search for a friend on Philadelphia Arts Alliance to get to “Shiny Monsters.”

I can connect the dots.  I can explain why each of these sites was of interest, and why they each contributed to the ongoing creation of me – the “who I am” in terms of what I “know” or think about.  I can tell you why I trust the information I found.  I don’t expect anything that I found will be cited by me in any type of academic paper.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: information literacy

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