Terence W. Cavanaugh

For the last ten years since e-books became available, I have required every one of my students taking the young adult materials course to read one book in e-format and to then comment about that experience.  I can count on two hands the number of students who have enjoyed the experience. From this experiment, I have concluded that librarians in graduate schools of library science are very resistive to the e-book technology. The complaints have become loud and repetitive. But, enter the era in which more and more students have their own personal computing device on which e-books, audio books, multimedia books, periodical databases, and the Internet are available. Further, consider that more and more publishers are providing their current titles in pdf format, and many textbook publishers now make their textbooks available digitally.

Cavanaugh, a technologist, sees the e-book as a teacher for both the normal student, and, in particular, for students with special needs, such as the hearing impaired, vision impaired, and English-language learners, all of whom can profit from a format other than normal text. Cavanaugh envisions that for a unit of instruction, the teacher will provide some sort of pathfinder to the students. They will download to their devices all the information resources they can handle and more, and with their portable devices, they can work off-line to do their research, assigned reading, additional reading, and recreational reading. Everything is at the elbow and just a click away.

Now if you cannot see where all of this is going and its implications for school libraries, then you just missed the train. Why have classroom collections been so widely embraced? The answer is convenience, of course, and in this society, convenience is everything.

Cavanaugh is convinced that such an immediate and convenient library is cheaper than the school library. He is fooling himself, but it also sounds attractive to school administrators. With the announcement from MIT of the $100 computer, and the governor of Massachusetts’ announcement that the state will purchase one computer for every student, we are on the brink of one-to-one computing. Many schools already have such access. So what is the role of the school library in this scenario? Where do you as teacher-librarian fit? Are we to take the stand that print will be around forever? It may be, but I think the customers will make that determination by their usage patterns.

Consider, for example, what percent of your students already prefer Google to the library as their first choice for information. No need to panic; it is time to lead! Read Cavanaugh’s book. What does he know that you do not? What do you know that he does not? Your answers will give you the clues, the strategies, and the directions to push forward. (International Society for Technology in Education, 2006. 162 pp. $37.95. 1-56484-221-5.)

Bottom line:  This book is required reading for every teacher-librarian. It cannot be ignored. It will make you angry, pleased, amused, chagrinned, excited, alarmed, and every other teeter-totter emotion that you can experience, but each one of us must confront this technology! david Loertscher