Keen recognizes that everyone who has access to the Internet can publish and produce on YouTube, Wikipedia, wikis, blogs, and a ton of other technologies. Thus, it is the age of the amateur as opposed to the expert, the edited work, the publishing house, the producer. Keen is worried like many librarians about the idea of quality information  and how to help a generation trust not just themselves but also recognize expertise when they encounter it. For example, the compares Citizendium with Wikipedia where in the former, contributors must register with credentials before being allowed to contribute content. Librarians will cheer this one.

There is a concerted effort on the party of many public libraries to attract patrons and conduct activities that market the library as a community center. We have here a challenge to conduct a monthly gaming contest for children, teens, parents, and community members. The author, who has had much experience with this, provides a guide to conducting such an activity with lots of details, dos and don’ts, strategies, workarounds, and ideas for doing this up right. One can imagine such an event at the local school in conjunction with a parents night to encouage attendance. Far fetched? How do you attract parents to the school library? How could you work with the public library on this type of project so that families have their public library card, are linked into the public library databases, have library cards, and understand the important role both libraries play in a person’s life. “Bring ‘em in for one thing, teach them another…” We all need marketing plans. This is worth considering.  Recommended.

As an outgrowth of Library Power (a major school library initiative of the 1990s), Boni Hamilton, the library media specialist, the faculty, and others in the district, realized that the collaboration model of integrating the library into the classroom was a good model of integrating technology as well. In their elementary school in Denver, Colorado, a model collaborative structure was set up so that teachers planning for a unit of instruction could expect not only full support from the library and the technology lab, but could expect partner teachers who were interested in high-level learning while integrating both the library and technology agendas. The result has been incredible in this oft-visited school by outsiders. Technology is not worshiped for the glitz it adds to projects and units, but for what it is actually contributing to learning. Hamilton has a book here tht describes the integration and the collaborative process between specialists and the faculty. Then she describes and demonstrates how to integrate and raise the expectations for various technology systems such as presentation software, word processing, drawing, and desktop publishing software. If you have noticed that library and technology departments in your elementary school(s) are going their separate ways, then this book is a great piece to read together as a specialist staff as a foundation for building a collaborative program. Unhappily, the full compliment of library collaboration was cut from this book by the editors, but enough remains that an exemplary program can be constructed in additional conversations with the author and others in the school. Highly recommended.

One on one computing, where every student has a computing device all day long and can takes the computer home at night are becoming more and more common. This book demonstrates that growing sophistication as it describes the creation, management, and the use of this computing environment. It also shows the growth of interest in elevating learning above the technological system. We begin thinking of  what is to be learned and then select a technology that will facilitate that learning across different types of learners. The book does focus on the planning, the management, the problems and gives examples from real schools across the country and then it focuses on the learning as mentioned.  The major lesson example, a study of Mesopotamia is an exemplary use of technology that guarantees that the student will have much more knowledge of both content and process than if the traditional textbook/lecture/film approach were used with cut and paste reports handed in. So, if your district or school is headed toward the one to one environment, then this book is a good way to visit a number of schools without doing the travel. Worth the price and the collective experience it provides. Cavi Lortscher, July 207