Cool New Blog Launch

TODAY I want to announce the launch of a new blog dedicated to subjects of pressing importance here in California -- education, books, technology, libraries and reading. Dig Me Out -- the name comes from the founder's roots in '90s indie rock -- looks at these subjects and takes a special interest in Young Adult fiction.

It's run by Pasadena school librarian Sara Scribner, who like many of her ilk in Southern California has been pink-slipped by her school district.

The fact that Sara -- and that this turn of events could exile us out of state -- is my wife makes me even more enthusiastic at directing readers of The Misread City to Dig Me Out.

Sara'a two latest posts are about the erosion of quality public education -- something she and I both benefited from on different coasts in the '70s and '80s --  and the disappearance of parents from YA novels.

Hope my readers find Sara's new blog intriguing.

Saving SoCal's Libraries, Part 2

RECENTLY I wrote about the plan of Pasadena Unified School District to get rid of all of its school librarians and, probably, shut all of its school libraries.

 

HERE is a new interview librarian Sara Scribner, who is also my wife, gave to her field's main publication, School Library Journal, on this and related topics.

Sample exchange: 

Do you think administrators and teachers value school librarians?

This is the way I see it: most teachers and administrators went to school more than 10 years ago. If you've been in an undergraduate or graduate program recently, you see that everything has changed so drastically in the realm of research and technology that it is a new world, a new universe. Everything is different.

Teachers see how students are manipulating the technology, though, and they're seeing bad information, false information, and an explosion of plagiarism.

They're worried. But they are so busy preparing students for these high-stakes tests that they often struggle to make the time for research projects. 

Sara -- who is quite a shy person and is only wading into this debate because she's fighting for something she believes in -- has also launched a new blog devoted to books, libraries, technology and education. Here it is: Dig Me Out.

Photo credit: I cheated slightly, as this library is in Italy.

Saving SoCal's Libraries

THIS blog is dedicated, of course, to West Coast culture, from classical music to science fiction, and I tend to stay away from politics here. But an issue crucial to the survival and access to West Coast culture is breaking now: the closing of libraries and especially school libraries in Southern California. This has been brought about by the recession and bad political judgement.


Pasadena Unified and LAUSD have plans to fire all of their school librarians, with the closing of those libraries likely. It feels like they are fulfilling the very East Coast stereotype of Southern California as shallow and anti-intellectual that I have spent much of my time in LA combatting. Who needs Bradbury's "firemen" from Fahrenheit 451, torching books, when locals decide to dismantle access to books and ideas on the basis of "fiscal responsibility"?


It's coming at a time when the economic climate has caused use of libraries nationwide to surge, and when the need for students to be information literate had made school librarians more crucial than ever.


HERE is the Op-Ed piece from today's LA Times. The piece concentrates on the way the Internet -- that great blessing and curse -- has made the work of school libraries more complicated and more important. Information flows so freely that young people can't separate the good from the bad. As school librarian Sara Scribner writes:


And to most kids, whatever they read on the Internet is "all good." I've been told, quite emphatically, that the Apollo moonwalk never happened, the Holocaust was a hoax and George W. Bush orchestrated 9/11 -- all based on text, photos or videos found online.


I should add here that Sara, a former LATimes and LA Weekly music writer who reviewed major records by Beck, Wilco and Sleater-Kinney before beginning  a new career as a teacher a decade ago, is also my wife. If she, along with these other school librarians who've been pink-slipped, loses her job, your favorite culture blog will be broadcasting from Portland or Austin, or not at all. (Because the LA Times decided that I was expendable, the two of us and our young son depend on her health insurance.)


Politically, we're seeing a combination of short-sightedness by the school districts and a lack of courage by Gov. Schwarzennegger to properly fund the schools and the rest of the state's infrastructure with tiny taxes on the wealthy. Gov. Reagan had the political guts to raise taxes for the sake of building the state; this supposed macho man has shown nothing but cowardice and confusion in dealing with the financial crisis.


So if you care about West Coast culture, or about The Misread City, please tell your friends in Pasadena and LA to make some noise. Interested parties can check out this site dedicated to saving Pasadena's schools through a Yes vote on Measure CC... To be -- I hope -- continued.


Addendum: Sara and others were on NPR's To the Point with Warren Olney, for a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation about these issues and more -- here is a link.