November 24, 2011 - no TV before 2

It's an old argument.

Socrates expressed doubts about literacy. Teach people to read, he said, and they won't have to remember anything. Their minds would get lazy. They would believe that just by decoding scrawls on paper, they had somehow gotten to the heart of some idea.

But real knowledge, real understanding, takes time and attention and deep thought.

He was right. And wrong.

It is true that few of us examine our lives as closely as Socrates examined his. And literacy does make it possible for relatively lazy people to think they know something big when they only know a few small things.

But current literacy research (see "Proust and the Squid," by Maryanne Wolfe) demonstrates that reading helps us think faster and better. We use the words and ideas of others as scaffolds. We climb them, then add to them.

Literacy is the foundation of shared knowledge. What we may lose in depth, we gain in breadth and height.

While there are few modern day Socrates, there are many sounding the alarm about the next breakthrough in thinking: technology.

According to a recent article in Wired Magazine (see www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/infant-tv-guidelines), "a decade ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested that parents limit TV consumption by children under two years of age."

More recent and comprehensive research by the AAP confirms the original caution and extends it to all kinds of screen time. The bottom line: the best thing we can do for babies is talk to and touch them. Language literally builds their brains.

The second most potent strategy is play. Plunk a baby in front of a TV, DVD or PC or any other glowing screen and they get hypnotized. But it doesn't do anyone under the age of two any good, and may do them harm.

In fact, just letting kids entertain themselves has proven to be far better for their developing minds. They solve problems. They grow their imaginations and creativity.

What does happen if little ones watch too much TV?

Falling asleep in front of the tube leads to sleep disorders -- no matter how old you are. But passive screen watching has been linked to mood and behavior problems, and perhaps to attention deficit disorder.

A 2006 study by some Cornell researchers (see forum.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/waldman/autism-waldman-nicholson-adilov.pdf) found that "approximately seventeen percent of the growth in autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s is due to the growth of cable television." Not only that, in places where it rains a lot, more people watch TV, and autism rises.

Television, it seems, is a "trigger" for autism. Or, to work in the influence of too much rain, let's say it "precipitates" autism.

The main thing about kids up to the age of two is that if they're staring blankly at a screen, then probably nobody is talking to them. So programs and software that are sold as "educational" for this age group probably aren't.

Does this mean that technology is evil? No, it just means that kids don't really even understand what's happening on a screen until then. So before the age of two, talk, play, and read with them.

But what about after they're two? A 2001 study by the University of Massachusetts probing the effect of childhood viewing on adolescents (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11326591) found that "Viewing educational programs as preschoolers was associated with higher grades, reading more books, placing more value on achievement, greater creativity, and less aggression."

In other words, the content of the program was more important than the medium.

Library staff had an interesting discussion recently about the use of iPads in library storytimes. Should we or shouldn't we?

Here's my take: the core of our children's services remains the celebration of story. We sing, dance, do finger plays, talk in funny voices, and use books, puppet shows, and yes, technology, to infect children with the sheer fun of reading.

The technology isn't the thing that matters. The engagement and language, the playfulness, is.

-
LaRue's Views are his own.

November 17, 2011 - imagine a world of men

A few years ago, I was riding on a bus with a librarian from China. We talked about an issue few people seem to know about.

In brief, there's a growing global imbalance between the sexes. There are a lot more boys than girls being born in China, for reasons I'll get to below. There are slightly more girls than boys being born in the United States.

At first, this looked like a golden opportunity. Could there be a better time to launch a Sino-American dating service?

But we realized that exotic romance wasn't the only option. A world with a big surplus of men and not enough women had one very probable result: war.

Now comes Mara Hvistendahl's book, "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men." The problem is getting worse. War isn't the only issue.

As of this writing, Asia alone is "missing" 160 million women and girls. That's the entire female population of the United States.

How did it happen? Well, in many Asian and Eastern European cultures, there's a preference for boys. And technology largely invented in and promoted by the West -- the early detection of the sex of the fetus, and the ready availability of abortion -- has enabled parents to terminate a female fetus until finally they get the boy they wanted.

In 2007, one Chinese port city reported that for children under the age of five, there were 163 boys for every 100 girls.

College recruiters report the odds like this all the time. Doesn't this discrepancy "favor" women?

No. In many places now, there's not so much international dating as the widespread purchasing (and selling) of brides. Women are also forced into prostitution -- what we call "human trafficking."

This is one of those issues where you can predict the "sides:" pro-choice and family planning versus anti-abortion. But whatever your ideological bent, you can't help but think this situation -- a global preponderance of men and the commodification of ever-scarcer women -- probably isn't good.

In those historical periods when women were under-represented, as in the Wild West, or the Gold Rush, violence was common. In ancient Athens, "a sex ratio of between 143 to 174 males for every 100 females" meant that women were essentially "confined within household compounds."

The original intent of early sex detection (the American invention of the sonogram in the sixties) was to help families get smaller: people could have the child they wanted, and stop. Over-population looked like a big problem then. For some people and places, it still does.

On the other hand, we've learned that as people become more affluent they tend to have fewer children anyhow. The government doesn't have to intervene.

So once again, technology has sometimes surprising consequences.

While this problem may appear to be personal -- each family making its own decisions -- it also has national and global consequences.

What should be done about it?

Opinions will differ. Hvistendahl argues for a global ban of sex-selective abortions. Others will continue to push for a ban on all abortions. But who will enforce such bans, and how?

It's an important subject. I recommend the book for anyone who just doesn't have enough to worry about, or possibly, has been worried about the wrong things altogether.

--
LaRue's Views are his own.

November 10, 2011 - art centers mark coming of age

I have now had the distinct pleasure of attending the ribbon cutting ceremonies for two wonderful facilities: the Lone Tree Arts Center, and the Parker Arts and Cultural Events (PACE) Center.

The Lone Tree Arts Center opened its doors on August 11. It has a 500 seat theater,  an additional 150-225 seat event theater that opens through a glass wall to a 300-350 seat outdoor terrace theater; and a lovely and functional entrance plaza. The cost for the facility was $23 million.

The PACE Center had its ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 28 (and will be officially opening on Oct. 29). And by the way, it was the most innovative such ceremony I've seen. Several ribbons were pulled across the stage, one behind the other, with one town Council person assigned to each. At the countdown, all of the ribbons were scissored through at once -- an exciting and interesting visual display.

The PACE Center has a 536 seat theater, 250 seat amphitheater, an event room with a catering and teaching kitchen, an art gallery, a dance studio, a media laboratory, and classrooms. It cost $21.7 million.

Because the Lone Tree Arts Center opened first, I've already attended about four events, and find that it works beautifully not only as a theater, but also as a sort of mini-conference center and luncheon space, as well as a reception and featured speaker venue.

I've only attended one performance at the PACE Center, but I can see already that it will be a success, too. 

Both centers have comfortable theaters with fine acoustics. Both have thoughtful designs. Lone Tree used Ohio-based architects Westlake Reed Leskosky. Parker employed Denver-based Semple Brown Designs.

Both centers took advantage of just the right moment in the economy to build impressive public spaces that were remarkably affordable. 

There are some differences. The funding for the Lone Tree Arts Center was based on a public vote, and narrowly carried. The funding for the PACE Center is based on Certificates of Participation (COPs) -- a kind of mortgage paid for out of existing revenues. Both projects have demonstrated close management of costs, and both Lone Tree and Parker have relied upon corporate and private donations.

Another difference may be just my own read. From the perspective of live performance, the Lone Tree Arts Center is clearly set up as a touring facility. That is, a show rolls in, sets up the stage, does the performance, and leaves.

The PACE Center feels like a more diverse community space. While it can host touring shows, too, the studios, media lab, and classrooms seem to encourage local citizens not just to consume culture, but to create it.

There is room in Douglas County for both approaches, and I'll be curious to see how these design differences pan out over the next few years.

I can't help but notice as I wander through each of the towns to see the related new construction, particularly in Lone Tree. An investment in the arts (and medical centers, in both communities) seems to encourage other investments. I can certainly see the appeal of living within walking distance of either place. Both will increase the vitality of their respective municipalities.

It's a good thing to be able to drive just a short distance to a great show, and be home before midnight. Now we just need more late night restaurants. Douglas County is coming of age.

Kudos to the leadership of both Lone Tree and Parker, and congratulations to your citizens.
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LaRue's Views

November 3, 2011 - we revere the book

A big study done in 2005 found that when average citizens heard "library" they thought "book."

Recently, the study was repeated. Since 2005, a lot of things have happened.

Over 97% of America's libraries have Internet access. Over 80% offer free wireless.

Many initiatives have been launched around the nation to connect even rural residents to the most sophisticated computer resources on the globe. That includes business databases, periodical articles, and a host of government and private research firms.

Based on the the most cutting edge investigations into brain development, libraries have articulated and responded to the need for early childhood literacy. That includes not just live storytelling for all ages, but outreach to families in a variety of settings.

The evidence is clear. The more stimulus young minds experience -- particularly around exposure to language -- the better their lives will be. Libraries really make a difference here. In Douglas County alone, we offer over 5,000 story times a year for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

In many communities around the nation, libraries are economic anchor stores. We generate more traffic than grocery stores. That traffic creates a "halo" effect. A visit to the library often results in $20 of sales to nearby businesses.

Speaking of business, more people come to the library than ever to look for jobs, or establish a business that creates jobs.

And we do a land office business in the fields of music and movies -- which represent their own kind of literacy.

So what does current research find?

Today, when people hear "library" even MORE of them think "book."

Librarians are constantly alert to what their communities use us for. But there's a profound disconnect between what we observe, and what our citizens feel about it.

Some of my colleagues are deeply frustrated by this. Not me.

Here's how I see it. Libraries, more than almost any other institution in history, have an unassailable brand.

When it comes right down to it, most Americans have a profound reverence for the Book.

That's because Book means three things:

* story. One of the deepest drives of humankind is for a narrative. We want to know what happened to whom. We care about character and transformation. We ask, "and then what happened?" The Book tells us a tale: a journey, a challenge, a discovery.

* idea. But it's not just about a series of events. The story has to be about something. We want to learn, too, not just be entertained. We want to know what the story means.

* immortality. While all of us remember stories from our early days, that memory only goes so far. We recall parents, grandparents, maybe even great-grandparents. We may come to know children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. And that's about where the flame of human connection and continuity gutters out.

But the Book endures. We still have the story of Gilgamesh, from 5,000 years ago. We know about Egyptian gods imagined in the time of the pyramids. The Bible tells us (among other things) about the tribes of Israel from millennia past. We have histories from the age of the Greeks and Romans. We have fairy tales from before English was a language.

And every hard won secret wrung from the glory of nature, every founding fact of science, every practical discovery of engineering and medicine, has also been captured by print. We don't have to lose those things. Books enshrine knowledge.

The Book preserves life because it preserves memory. It conquers death.

And where do Books live? The Old Norse Gods went to Valhalla; books, to the library.

While not every book does in fact endure, within or without the library, the idea of the Book, and of an institution dedicated to the gathering, organization, and presentation of it to everyone is a founding principle of civilization.

So today's library is not JUST about books. But what an awesome place to start.

---
LaRue's Views are his own.

October 27, 2011 - no test in Constitution

On the one hand, we honor it. We appeal to it. We think it matters.

On the other hand, it was and is riddled with profound mistakes.

The Constitution of the United States of America was crafted by some of the brightest people the world has known. They were also well-educated by the standards of the time. Of the 55 delegates who drafted the Constitution in 1787, 60 percent of them had attended college.

The striking idea at the heart of our founding document was that the purpose of government was to preserve individual liberties. Yet at the same time, it explicitly endorsed slavery, and denied women the right to vote.

Recently I've been reading about the many controversies that attended its adoption (see the writings of Cornell professors Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore). Here's one you don't hear much about:

In 1787 and 1788, the draft U.S. Constitution was harshly challenged because it was explicitly irreligious. Not anti-religious. There's a difference.

But unlike virtually every other political document of the age, the draft Constitution made no references to God. Religion makes only one appearance: Article 6 declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

And that was news. Eleven of the thirteen original states did have religious tests. Even in Rhode Island, founded on the principles of religious tolerance, and a place where many Catholics and Jews worshiped, you had to be a Protestant to hold office. 

Virginia and New York had adopted freedom from a religious test, however, probably under the influence of James Madison, who in the Federalist Papers wrote that too fervent a pursuit of religious opinions lead men "to vex and oppress each other."

But a Massachusetts Constitutional delegate protested that the no religious test clause meant that  "a papist, or an infidel" was just as eligible as Protestants. Delegates from New Hampshire and North Carolina worried about "pagans, deists, Mahometans [sic]," Jews, abolitionist Quakers, and "yea, an atheist at the helm of government." 

A Connecticut constitutional delegate proposed a one sentence preamble to the Constitution, to at least begin with God. A Virginia delegate proposed that the religious test be amended to require no OTHER test than a belief in God, who would reward the good and punish the evil. 

Both changes were overwhelmingly rejected by the convention.

Why? According to defenders of the article, public service should be open to any "wise or good citizen." There was as much a shortage then as now, and no religion seemed to have a corner on them. 

Baptist leaders defended the no religious test clause. Religion should be detached from "temporal power" lest it be corrupted by it. That wasn't just a fear, it was clear recent history, both in England, and in the colonies. Let the state try to promote a particular religious view, and tyranny followed. Religion was between man and God, not man and state. 

Religion just wasn't the business of government. Or as Jefferson wrote, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say There are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket."

Another defender wrote that the time had passed "when nations could be kept in awe with stories of God's sitting with legislators and dictating laws." No less a personage than John Adams, just before the Constitutional convention, wrote that the architects of American governments never "had interviews with the gods or were in any way under the inspiration of Heaven." Rather, our governments were "founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery..."

So at last, the United States Constitution was approved, and the prohibition on religious tests was preserved. 

The clear separation between government and religion was further reinforced by the adoption of the First Amendment. But that's another story.

--
LaRue's Views are his own.

October 20, 2011 - he made the toys we wanted

The first computer I ever used was an Apple ][+.  It only displayed 40 characters per line, and didn't understand upper and lower case. Mostly I used it for spreadsheets, which was a revelation.

Then I used an Apple //e (Apple loved using idiosyncratic typewriter characters back then). And with that, I wrote a comprehensive computer catalog manual for a library in Springfield IL. After that, I knew I had to have something that made the writing process so much easier.

Briefly, I considered a new machine from Apple, called the "Lisa." It was the precursor to the Macintosh.  But it was very pricey.

So I bought a Kaypro II -- a machine running the CP/M operating system, then the dominant business platform. It was the first loan of my life ($2500 for computer and printer). I paid it off in two years, mostly through writing about computers. 

My next computer was an MS-DOS machine, also from Kaypro. 

When Windows came out, I found it really confusing, contradictory, and thoroughly inelegant. Then a friend lent me an Apple Powerbook, a Macintosh laptop. I gave it a hard and thoughtful look. 

And it grabbed me. I saw what Windows was TRYING to do (which was "copy Apple"). The Apple operating system was a brilliantly executed, paradigm-shifting way to think about interacting with a computer. I shifted platforms.

Later came the other fascinating devices: the Newton (in that brief period when Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple by John Sculley), then (after Jobs returned) the iPod, the many interesting Mac designs, the iPhone, the iPad.

Most of the folks in my family use Apple computers, although later I shifted again to the Linux operating system, mostly to explore the Internet. But I do have, and use, an iPad.

After hearing about the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on Oct. 5, I listened again to his famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. He talked about how he dropped out of college, then did things that didn't seem important at the time. 

For instance, he took a calligraphy class. 

Later, he even got fired from the very company he founded.

But he came to realize that those experiences became the foundation of his character, and his life's path. 

Jobs was not an engineer or a programmer. He was a designer, with a passion for the subtle touches that mark the difference between something that works and is serviceable, versus something that not only works, but is also an engaging sensual delight. 

And he rediscovered the freedom of new beginnings.

He was that extraordinary phenomenon, a visionary. He had a passion for the future, a belief that something "insanely great" was not only possible, but urgently necessary. 

His management style was often acerbic, confrontative, and disruptive. But he shipped the products that people wanted.

A few weeks ago, I read that Apple was, briefly, the most valuable company in the world. Even after it fell back behind Exxon, it still remained the unchallenged tech company, surpassing not only early rival IBM, but the company that once seemed unbeatable: Microsoft.

There's a cynical phrase. "He who dies with the most toys wins." Jobs created some of the most compelling toys the world had ever seen. And as someone else noted, poignantly, millions of people heard about Jobs' death ON a device that he created. 

And now he's dead, a man a year younger than I am, the kind of detail one can't help but notice.

There are never enough years, I suppose, at least not if we have our health and the joy of translating dreams into reality. Money, based on all the psychological research to date, doesn't seem to have anything to do with happiness.

But here's something that does matter. One man turned his restless imagination into a fountain of creation. That's the big reward. He made things. He changed things.

So my tribute is just two words, finally, the two words so hard to earn, and so rare to hear from those we ourselves admire. 

Well done.

---
LaRue's Views are his own.

October 13, 2011 - who will be the last one standing?

Back in 2008, I was interviewed by a reporter. With a knowing air, he asked me if libraries were going to survive the Internet. On Feb. 27, 2009, after 150 years of operation, his newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, printed its final edition. 

Now when reporters ask me that question I answer, "You bet we'll survive. Will you?"

For awhile, it looked like only the smaller newspapers would make it, because they provided the only way for local businesses to advertise. But now even the smaller papers are feeling the pinch, shrinking their staffs to the point where a lot of news just doesn't get covered.

And if newspapers disappear, who WILL cover the local news? I worry about that. Can citizen journalism provide enough quality content? And how are they supposed to make a living?

There may also be a big shake-up in the world of book publishing. 

As it happens, libraries are a big part of that marketplace. We account for about 10% of all commercial publishing sales. For children's book, it's 40%. 

But now some publishers (four of the big six) won't sell ebooks to libraries at all. The other two will only lease them. (And as I've written before, when you "buy" an ebook, odds are good you're just leasing it, too. Read the license agreement that came with your Kindle or Nook.)

These big publishing houses have made a unilateral decision that overturns centuries of precedent: they have denied ownership of content to libraries (requiring us to go through third parties to manage that content), AND raised their price to us over the straight retail cost. 

Part of that is because they believe that libraries rob them of sales. But think that through. Last year, Douglas County citizens checked out over eight and a half million items. Does anyone really think people would have bought that many?

What libraries do is ENCOURAGE sales, by letting our patrons sample lots of things, and building up their habits of reading, listening, and watching. That habit is the practice of literacy. And it's also the creation of a larger market for stories and ideas.

Over 2 million people a year visit our catalog. They're all looking for books, and we make it easier to find them. I buy a lot of books myself, but it's because I found the authors I like at the library.

Yet some publishers would be much happier bypassing the library altogether, and going with the Netflix model, now adopted by Amazon. Pay a monthly subscription fee, and read all you want! Never mind that the cost of that deal is considerably higher than what you'll pay to a library, and you still won't own anything.

Meanwhile, Douglas County Libraries has identified over 700 publishers who are eager to sell to us. And the growth of self-publishing (from 29,000 titles in 2004 to over 2.7 million in 2010) has put a lot of authors out there who just might be willing to sell their ebooks to us directly. Recently, three of the top 10 bestsellers in America were self-published, so it's not like we'd be buying things people don't want to read.

Can libraries manage our own electronic content, integrating it into our existing catalogs? Indeed we can. And I've been doing a little traveling and speaking around the country lately telling other librarians how to do it, too.

So if some publishers won't sell libraries books, and self-published authors will, then libraries will start shifting their budgets away from the big houses, skipping over a whole link in the distribution chain.

If and when that happens, I think the shoe is on the other foot. It just might be the publishers, not the libraries, that can't survive the rise of the World Wide Web and the ebook.

Wouldn't it be ironic if libraries were the last ones standing?

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LaRue's Views are his own.