In a little over a month, I—along with thousands of other librarians—will be in your backyard as we come to Washington D.C. for the 2010 American Library Association Annual Conference. I will be in town from Friday, June 25 through Tuesday, June 29 , and I am offering you my services to show you these kinds of tools and skills I have shared in this letter to help you better understand not only the possibilities for evaluating and managing information streams, but to also provide you a personal learning experience as to what librarians can do for the citizens of this country. As a librarian who subscribes to a participatory philosophy of librarianship, I invite you to come join me in conversation so that we can learn together. I, along with my librarian peers, would be honored if you could join us in the Networking Uncommons for some fun and informal learning with cloud computing as well as gadgets like iPhones and iPads. You have an opportunity to model lifelong learning for the citizens of this country by joining us at ALA.
You took an important first step last fall with your proclamation of National Information Literacy Month in 2009. Now is the time for you to take the next step by rethinking some of your statements and by taking action to provide libraries, librarians, and educational institutions the resources we need to mobilize and broadly implement your ideas so that the vision of an informed citizenry can be realized for everyone, not just a privileged or lucky few. By formulating and implementing a plan to embed transliteracy as an essential literacy in our libraries and educational institutions, you have a historic and unique opportunity to shape the course of this country by recasting and amplifying the power of education.
We need bold action and leadership from you to help truly realize the possibilities for a democratic society in profound ways—that is the kind of change we can believe in. Are you willing to be a catalyst for this kind of change? The invitation is on the table.
Sincerely and respectfully,
Buffy J. Hamilton, Ed.S.
School Librarian
Creekview High School
buffy.hamilton at gmail.com
I don’t know about you, but I’m inspired. You can read the full blog post by School Librarian Buffy Hamilton over at her blog The Unquiet Librarian.
-Post by Justin Hoenke, Tame the Web Contributor