[extropy-chat] School libraries and skiffy

[Robert Bradbury]

On 11/9/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> At 02:38 PM 11/7/2006 -0600, Damien wrote:
> >At 03:24 PM 11/7/2006 -0500, Keith Henson wrote:
> >
> > >PS.  I went through about a dozen high school libraries in the San Jose
> > >area around 1995 looking at the books of my childhood (Heinlein, Clarke,
> > >Asimov and others) to see if the failure of those books to be read after
> > >some point in the early 70s was widespread, similar to what I had  noticed
> > >in my daughter's middle school.  It was.  I have no theory as to why.

I suspect it would be due to the rise of cable TV (lots of channels)
and/or VCRs and DVD players (and the costs for renting these to be
relatively low).  Video game consoles is probably another factor.
Kids simply have too much competition for their time.  Now-a-days it
would be computers and the internet (for many).

Back in the days when there was only 1 TV in a home one had more
competition for what you could watch (and the selections weren't as
interesting to kids).  So reading was an enjoyable way to pass the
time.

I would expect that this should have been studied by educators.

One thing that surprised me recently was to discover that the Cabot
Science Library  at Harvard has tons and tons of programming language
books, operating system books, etc.

Robert