73% of books in libraries never checked out?

A column by Harvey MacKay in my local newspaper (www.fresnobee.com) caught my attention today.  The title of the column was “Start new year with a new love of learning.”  In the column, he proposes a new year’s resolution “a steady diet of learning” and “You don’t go to school once for a lifetime; you are in school all of your life.”   Sounds good to me.  Towards the end of the article, he wrote:

“We live in a sad time when you consider the following statistics, which I found recently: 

• Only 14% of adults with  a grade-school education read literature in 2002.
• 51% of the American population never reads a book of more than 400 pages after they complete their formal education.
• 73% of all books in libraries are never checked out.”

It was this last statistic that really caught my attention.  I had never read this statistic and was not able to find the source of this statistic.  I was able to find a report by the National Endowment of the Arts entitled “Reading at Risk:  A Survey of Literary Reading in America.”  (2004).  This report does talk about the reading habits of the 17,000 people they interviewed. 

However, I found nothing about the percentage of books checked out of libraries.  If this is a true statistic, then I wonder if indeed libraries are becoming obsolete in their current form.  I wonder if the same is true in school libraries?  academic libraries?  I did email Mr. Mackay to ask about the source of this statistic.

And, perhaps I missed the report that does show the ways people now use libraries?

You! Are the Time Magazine “Person of the Year”!

In case you haven’t seen it yet, Time Magazine has named all of YOU as the 2006 person of the year. 

For all of you who have been blogging, my-space-ing, podcasting, youtube-ing, wiki-ing, etc. for the past year, congratulations! 

You have made the Web what it is today and challenged the rest of us to continue to contribute.  To those of you who have been doing this much longer than I, thanks for all that you have done to transform our thinking and more importantly, to transform education, learning, and libraries!

Other Comments about “Tough Choices or Tough Times”

 The report entitled “Tough Choices or Tough Times” by the New Commission on the Skills of the American workforce has received a variety of responses: 

• Found on Sebastien Marion’s blog.  Comments by Thomas Friedman in the NY Times.
• On Philip Waring’s Blog.  Comments from Jay Mathews in the Washington Post.  Comments on Education Week.
• On The District Administration Blog.  Comments by Will Richardson.

Tough Choices or Tough Times Misses Mark

I just read the executive summary of the National Center on Education and the Economy entitled Tough Choices or Tough Times.  I read it the first time thinking to myself, “I wonder how this will move the ideas of Web 2.0 and all of the educationl reforms forward?”  As I read through the introduction, I agreed with the great lines such as:

“A swiftly rising generation of American workers at every skill level are in direct competition with workers in every corner of the globe“  OR “This is a world in which a very high level of preparation in reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, science, literature, history, and the arts will be an indispensable foundation for everything that comes after for most members of the workforce“  OR “The core problem is that our education and training systems were build for another era.”

We already know this.  These statements along with many of the ideas in the report are ideas that have been proposed for years.  And, if you’ve been reading books such as The World is Flat and A Whole New Mind then this is not new information.  There is not much in the report to disagree with except that it doesn’t take into account how to work within the educational system that has already been established to move these ideas forward.  And, maybe the full report details this, but it is not clear what “new skills” are needed for the work force.  Aren’t we using these “new skills” now?  I don’t think the disconnect between the work force and education is much different now than when the SCANS report (1990) was issued.  One of the opening lines of that report stated:  “more than half of our young people leave school without the knowledge or foundation required to find and hold a good job.”  Sound familiar?  Has anyone followed up on the SCANS report and/or the 1990 report by the National Center in Education and Economy entitled: “America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!” to document the progress that has been made?  We should be building on what we have in the current system.

The diagram developed as part of the report in the Executive Summary is something to think about.  I believe that this diagram is something most people in education have been thinking about.  There are schools in the U.S. that are operating with this in mind.

Divided We Fall – See the Documentary!

A former student of mine has completed a wonderful documentary entitled “Divided We Fall.”  She crossed the nation after 911 documenting reactions to the bombing of the world trade center buildings.  Valarie Kaur, who blogs about traveling across the country and the development of the documentary, is now presenting the film at various screenings across the nation.   Although I have not seen the film, I can already tell from the clips online, that it is a wondeful and thought provoking documentary that is told through the words of those who experienced the post-911 culture in America.