Book Review: Partners in Literacy: Schools and Libraries Building Communities through Technology, Technology and English Studies: Innovative Professional Paths, Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom, Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction

Driving through any town or city, one will pass by a school, a library, or both.Schools, supported through tax dollars, are buildings children are required to spend time in each day for most of the year.They work, learn, and socialize in classrooms with peers.In the USA, communities are responsible for their schools, running them and determining goals and missions through electing school boards and hiring district administration.Public libraries, on the other hand, are attended and used by children voluntarily.While public libraries, too, are supported by tax dollars -again in the USA -they historically have been supplemented through other gifts and grants, such as those given by the Carnegie Corporation.Computers and technology have been adopted to different extents within both institutions.Since computers have become compact, manageable, and generally affordable, schools and libraries have become places where they are used, though the ways that schools and libraries have adopted and taken advantage of technology have differed greatly.This is the focus of Cuban & Cuban's Partners in Literacy: schools and libraries building communities through technology.The central questions that Cuban & Cuban attempt to answer in this text are: (1) how have computers transformed the purposes and functions of libraries and schools; (2) why do schools and libraries appear to use technology in different ways to meet different goals; and (3) how can these institutions work together for the good of the people in the communities they serve?Schools and libraries have coexisted in the USA for nearly two centuries.Within this context, the purpose of schools has been to deliver compulsory education for all children.Similarly, the purpose of libraries has been to educate, but through services offered voluntarily to all residents in the communities they serve.While the goals of both institutions have been to promote literacy, they have traditionally accomplished this goal separately.The emergence of technology has heightened this separation as computers have been adopted differently in schools and libraries.In general, across the USA, libraries have embraced technology while schools have resisted it.Cuban & Cuban begin with an overview of this history of how schools and libraries have performed their various functions.Through a historical analysis of both the purposes and development of schools and libraries, the authors begin by placing each institution side by side, comparing the growth and missions of each during nineteenth and twentieth century reform movements to the present.Grounded in diffusion-of-innovations theory, institutional theory, and learning theories, the authors attempt to answer how technologies in schools and libraries revolutionize their roles, explain how each institution has adopted and applied technology differently, and how these institutions can team up to provide the best services within the communities they serve.Schools instill literacy, reading, writing, and arithmetic, through grade-level instruction and testing, while libraries offer choices and professional librarians at the service of the patrons' choices and interests.Over the last two hundred years, both institutions have been defined by social reforms, such as progressivism and the Civil Rights Movement, and educational reforms, such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and No Child Left Behind.Pressures to educate the public to provide a stronger democracy played a role in both the missions of schools and libraries and these can be traced to how each institution functions today.As for new technologies, libraries have been quicker to adapt, while schools have lagged behind. Book Reviews 243According to Cuban & Cuban, the period of time from the mid 1800s to the 1920s in the USA was a coercive period for schools and libraries, where both struggled for legitimacy.Libraries received funding, especially through the Carnegie foundation while schools received government funding.The 1920s to the 1970s was a normative time for schools and libraries, where jobs and roles in both institutions were professionalized as each branched out to rural communities and strived to expand services.The period from the 1970s to the present is a mimetic period for both schools and libraries as these government institutions have come under pressure to adopt business models to make each run more effectively.During this time libraries adopted technology for record keeping and encouraged patrons' use of technology.Schools, on the other hand, were using technology mostly for record keeping, not as a tool in the classroom.Until libraries took advantage of computers for educational purposes in the late 1990s, they were seen by the public mainly as buildings that housed books.Technology allowed libraries to support adults' workplace literacy and offer tutoring services for students and immigrants.Libraries have been quicker and more innovative adopters of technology because computers have served as a valuable tool in their efforts to continue adult and community education efforts.This is supported through studies that have been done in cities around the United States researching how technology has been used in libraries.The public schools have been slower and less adaptable in their adoption of technology than libraries.Though the presence of computers in schools has increased substantially in the past few decades, this does not mean that they are being used by students in the classroom.In fact, the authors state, teachers who do include technology in the classroom are in the minority.The research that has been done on computer use in schools has not answered questions about the effectiveness of its use, and mainly focuses on computer-assisted intervention.Some studies of one child-one computer configurations use have been promising.But, the authors warn, these studies rely on self-reported data which makes them untrustworthy.Overall, libraries and schools work separately in promoting literacy in neighbourhoods across the country.Schools promote an autonomous literacy, while libraries are involved in promoting multiple literacies (critical literacy, health literacy, digital literacy, etc.) Different groups take advantage of resources available at the library for different reasons.Cuban & Cuban present a framework aimed at helping both institutions to work together by means of a shared focus on digital technology.They present several examples of this already occurring in cities around the USA.Successful collaborations are marked by shared visions, goals, and resources, and focus on the needs of the particular communities in which they are located.This book succinctly offers a view of technological innovation and adoption in schools and libraries within the USA.Cuban & Cuban's criticism of schools' adoption history of technology, similar to that of Gee (2004), and Buckingham (2007), ascribes its failure to the 'school structure, pedagogical issues, and the aims of education as varied stakeholders interpret them' (p.79).However, Cuban & Cuban do not get bogged down in the bureaucracy of schools or libraries.Instead, this text provides a quick and complete overview of these institutions and their relationships with technology.The concepts presented are simple, even though the subject matter is not.Though the final chapter provides instances of libraries and schools working together in the technological age to provide resources for residents of several communities, little detail is given concerning the experiences of teachers and libraries working together.However, this bodes well for the text as a whole, considering its main purpose is to examine and inform its reader of the state of technology in schools and libraries and not outline a detailed blueprint for their integration.Cuban & Cuban's Partners in Literacy would be an excellent textbook in any librarian and school librarian degree or certificate program -even programs outside the USA would benefit from the insights to be obtained from their well-informed recommendations.Practising librarians in a range of settings -community, school -would also find this book a very useful read.School administrators and technology coordinators similarly would find much of use in this accessible book.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.