Yes, it's the full moon again, and Scriven's off on another one. But it's hard not to get your fangs out when you see some of the crap they write in library journals. Honestly.
The latest bit's from
VOYA, the Voice of Youth Advocates magazine. (Voice of Youth Advocates? - pfff, nice name >:-}) Anyway, there's an article called
Do You Like to Read? in which the author lambasts these hidebound librarians for asking such a question of Young People. And expecting that to mean printed texts. How dare they? Of course teens love to read! They read Twitter and Facebook, which are every bit as worthy as a book! Why are we expecting them to read things they don't like?
Come on, lady. Pull your head out.
Speaking as an accidental librarian, I've become an ardent supporter of graphic novels and magazines as pathways into reading. There's some damn good writing, illustration and storytelling in both these formats. But since when is a tweet an adequate replacement?
A tweet is, in essence, someone's immediate thought posted online. It's a brief, unfiltered thing. It's as much "literature" as a Tui billboard. Sure, to read
anything requires a modicum of literacy. But you can't argue that catching up on Twitter or Facebook is the same as reading an actual structured, coherent argument or work of imagination. What do these media give teens that a text message or a note stuck to the fridge couldn't?
"Need milk - pls pick some up. Love you." How do they encourage creativity and deeper thought?
If transactional information or gossip is all teens are expected to read, God help them. They'll end up a generation of unimaginative, materialistic...uh oh.
Jokes aside, today's teens
do like to read real books. And we should be encouraging that, not telling them it's OK just to check their inbox. There are whole universes out there besides this one, and the only way to access them is through literature. Teens aren't all stupid and shallow, and we shouldn't be treating them that way. Reading doesn't have to be about
War and Peace and
Vanity Fair, but they also don't have to like all of it. Challenge them, for God's sake. Let them know the difference between good literature and bad. Encourage them to explore and contrast.
Digital formats are changing the world, and have the power to do so much good. I can't imagine what my life was like before the internet. By all means, be inventive and include digital content in classrooms and libraries. But you'd never let a child eat only what it liked, would you? Likewise, the fast-food outlets of cyberspace, the Twitters and the Facebooks and the Tumblrs should never be the whole diet. Or tomorrow's society will be very sick indeed.
