Howard Dean and Rush Holt Oppose SOPA

On Wednesday night I attended a fundraising event for Rush Holt, the Congressman representing central New Jersey. He's not my congressman, but as one of the few scientists in congress, he better represents many of my interests than the congressman representing my district. That guy has just been redistricted so he really doesn't represent me any more. As an added attraction, the event featured Howard Dean, the former DNC chairman and presidential candidate.

The reason I really wanted to attend the event was that I wanted to express my dismay at SOPA, the anti-intellectual-piracy proposal that would require the government to shoot internet machine guns at copyright cockroaches, with predictable results. I've previously written about how this law would affect libraries, both domestic and foreign.

The funny thing is that I had trouble discovering where Rep. Holt stood on the issue. I hoped that he would at least be sympathetic. So I arrived early to be sure to ask directly.

I waited my turn to get a photo taken,  introduced myself and said I thought SOPA was a terrible law. To my great relief, both Rep. Holt and Gov. Dean responded quickly that they were against SOPA, and that opposition to the bill was growing rapidly. Gov. Dean urged me to talk to his brother Jim, who heads "Democracy for America" (DFA) the grassroots political organization started by Howard after his presidential run ran out.

It turns out that DFA has begun to oppose SOPA without even publicizing what it's doing. Their tech guy, with the support of the Deans, moved their many domains away from GoDaddy over the holiday break. So if you want to support a progressive group that's walking the walk on SOPA opposition, DFA is a great option. They've not made a big deal of it, because they're not sure how to translate their opposition into action.

When it comes to paying attention to science and what it tells us about public policy, Rep. Holt is the real deal. He's also paying attention to the changing roles of libraries and libraries in today's educational environment. Yesterday he toured school libraries in New Jersey with IMLS director Susan Hildreth to promote the Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act, which he will soon introduce on the federal level. As I wrote last year, proper use of librarians in schools can have measurable impact on student achievement.

Howard Dean was the star of the evening, however. He spoke extemporaneously for about a half an hour and had the crowd cheering. He does have a problem with microphones, however. He gets so involved in what he talks about that any microphone amp in the vicinity goes into distortion. It was heartening to hear a national politician mention the SOPA controversy among all the other problems the nation faces.

For all the fears that SOPA is not getting proper attention in the mainstream media, its good to know there are some people in power who understand the issues.

Library Journal: Should Kids Get eBooks in School?

My second piece for Library Journal is now up. Here's the beginning:

Searching for information is NOT like trolling for fish. You know the saying: "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for life." Answer someone's question, and most likely they'll go away for today. Teach someone how to search for the answer, and they'll continually hunger for more.

What didn't fit into the article was more of Doug Achterman's story. He's the Teacher-Librarian at Hollister High School in California who did his Ph. D. dissertation on his work unraveling the data on how school library staffing affects student performance. This year, his school library has had its staffing slashed. This year, it will be staffed with a half time professional, (Achterman) and an 80% time clerical worker. This is for a high school with 3000 students in an economically mixed community. The other half of Achterman's time will be spent teaching English.

It's ironic that Achterman will be witnessing the negative side of his conclusion that school libraries require adequate staffing to have a positive impact on student performance; he'll be doing his best to prove that conclusion wrong, at least in one California high school. Despite very strong community support for the school library at several school board meetings, the budget cutting axe could not be averted.

Despite his library's unenviable budget situation, Achterman was upbeat. He emphasized that he viewed his most important role was working with other teachers. He has a long term goal of creating tutorials, videos and other resources for his teaching colleagues. Take a look at his library's web page if you need inspiration for what a dedicated library professional can do in a school library, budget cuts be damned.