New Pew Report on Teens and Writing Released

Found Via Stephens Lighthouse..
VERY interesting! (and very long..)
“- 87% of youth ages 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending email or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites.
- 60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.
- 64% of teens admit that they incorporate, often accidentally, at least some informal writing styles used in personal electronic communication into their writing for school. (Some 25% have used emoticons in their school writing; 50% have used informal punctuation and grammar; 38% have used text shortcuts such as “LOL” meaning “laugh out loud.”)”

!!

“There is a raging national debate about the state of writing and how high-tech communication by teens might be affecting their ability to think and write,” noted Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at Pew who co-authored a report on the findings titled Writing, Technology and Teens. “Those on both sides of the issue will see supporting data here. There is clearly a big gap in the minds of teenagers between the ‘real’ writing they do for school and the texts they compose for their friends. Yet, it is also clear that writing holds a central place in the lives of teens and in their vision about the skills they need for the future.”

ALA’s State of America’s Libraries report

You’ll find the full text (pdf) here and the Executive Summary here.

Some of the bad news: “For the first time ever, funding for school libraries and the school library media specialists who staff them is declining. Nationally, library expenditures per pupil decreased to $13.67 in 2003-2004 from $19.14 in 1999-2000, a drop of almost 30 percent, according to the NCES. They have since dropped to $11.24, according to a 2007 survey.”

And some of the good news: “Americans continue to check out more than 2 billion items each year from their public libraries, and more and more people make use of libraries’ educational and social resources. The average user takes out seven-plus books a year, but patrons also go to their libraries to borrow DVDs, learn new computer skills, conduct job searches, and participate in the activities of local community organizations. Average bill to the taxpayer for this remarkable range of public services: $31 a year, about the cost of one hardcover book.”

New PRIMO Sites Of The Month For February & March

The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee of the Instruction Section of ACRL is pleased to announce its Sites of the Month for February and March 2008. To read the full interviews for both projects and to browse the archive of previous profiles, please see here.

*** PRIMO Site of the Month Interview, February 2008 ***

Appalachian State University Library Research Tutorial

Authors: Kelly McBride and members of the Library Research Tutorial Taskforce
Institution: Appalachian State University Library and Information Commons

Description: The Appalachian State University Library Research Tutorial is an interactive, web-based tutorial designed for use within the Freshman Seminar Program. In 2006 it was completely re-designed to incorporate information literacy more prominently within the content.

* Module 1 introduces students to a variety of locations and services within the library.
* Module 2 compares types of information sources: popular vs. scholarly, primary vs. secondary and internet vs. database sources.
* Module 3 teaches students to search effectively by developing thesis statements, using background sources, identifying key concepts, combining search terms, identifying synonyms and using truncation.
* Module 4 helps students find materials using the catalog, reserves, and library databases.
* Module 5 presents fives steps in evaluating information sources.
* In Module 6 students learn to avoid plagiarism.
Continue reading New PRIMO Sites Of The Month For February & March…

ACRL Springboard, If You Missed it Live!

ACRL Springboard Event archive and podcast interview with Henry Jenkins

On April 2, ACRL held its inaugural Springboard Event, an annual free webcast for ACRL members. The webcast featured Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities at MIT. The archive of Henry’s presentation will be made available on the ACRL website on April 16. More details are online here.

In the meantime, check out the podcast, “A Conversation with Henry Jenkins,” online here. In this podcast interview, Henry talks with College & Research Libraries News editor-in-chief David Free about presenting online, participatory culture, libraries, and rapper Soulja Boy as the poster boy for new media literacy.

Next ACRL OnPoint Chat

On Tuesday, April 29, 2008 11 a.m. Pacific, Becky Albitz, electronic resources and copyright librarian at Penn State and ACRL Copyright Committee chair; and Jim Neal, vice president for information services and university librarian at Columbia University and a member of the Section 108 Study Group will convene online to discuss the recently released Section 108 Study Group Report, an independent report sponsored by the U.S. Copyright Office and the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program of the Library of Congress. ACRL OnPoint is a live series of informal monthly chat sessions that provide the opportunity to connect with colleagues and experts to discuss an issue of the day in academic and research librarianship.
Click here for info on the 108ers or read on after the jump.
Continue reading Next ACRL OnPoint Chat…

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