This Book is Overdue!

When I saw that our first assignment was to read “This Book is Overdue,” I had a pretty good feeling about it.  It looked like an easy read, and something that I would enjoy; a nice intro back into college reading.  For those of you that may not know, I am currently a kindergarten and 1^st grade teacher at an elementary school on the East Side of Madison.  Most of my reading lately has been geared towards the younger side… not college level textbooks.  My goal is to ultimately become a school librarian in an elementary school. 

While I was reading the book I had mixed emotions to whether or not I “liked” the book.  Parts I did; parts I didn’t.  But all in all, a number of things stuck out in my mind about the book.  First off, the whole section of the avatars and second life creeped me out a little bit.  At first thought, I found it bizarre that people were pretending to be completely different people than who they are.  (However, I suppose that is some of the appeal to it.)  I was talking to my mom (who happens to work in a middle school library) on the phone the other day about the avatars situation.  I was expecting her to take my side on the weirdness of avatars, but much to my surprise it was quite the opposite!  She explained that at their school library, the librarian made an avatar of herself on the school’s reference shelf webpage.  When students arrive at this page, they can click on her avatar and get help navigating the page, or leave a message that the librarian can respond to.  When I started to see this in action, I actually thought it was kind of a smart idea for a school’s library.  Maybe avatars aren’t that bizarre… I just haven’t had ample exposure to them. 

I also found the section concerning the privacy of what people checked out quite interesting.  Again, taking it to the context of a school library, I began to wonder if we keep records of all of the books our students check out, and if there was a way to retrieve all of the records of students past.  For reasons stated in the book, I can see why privacy becomes such an issue at an adult level.  But would it really matter for kids?  Then I thought back to a student who I had last year: a little rough and tumble boy who was very into sports.  One week he checked out a book about cheerleading competitions.  He told all of the classmates it was because he wanted to look at the girls in it (yes, 1^st grader here) and ended up hiding his book. But at recess, I caught him making routines and doing flips in the field.  Now no one asked to see a record of all of the books he previously checked out, but shouldn’t he have the freedom to check out whatever he wants without any speculation?  Maybe I am simplifying the issue a little bit, but it is something to think about. 

I tend to be long winded, so I’ll stop now.  All in all, many points of interest to discuss in this book and an overall good read.