Eric Cunningham
Tuesday                                                                                                                                 September 22, 2009
2:40-3:55

Foley Library Services

This is an overview of some of the technology you’ll find in the basement of the library. The big screen tv can be used whenever you like as well as the STAR Board. There is a place to plug in your laptop into the big screen tv, and you can use digital pens on the STAR board. Both are meant for academic purposes and both are brand new. The tv and the STAR Board are both compatible with PCs, but did not appear to be compatible with current Macs.

The computer lab has 31 computers, and there is a transfer station that you can use to upload documents or other media to library computers. Each of these has USB ports for thumb drives.

The basement also has some rather archaic technology such as typewriters. And microforms.

Each floor is designated as a certain zone that indicates the level of noise allowed on that particular floor. For instance the basement is a “green” zone, which means that talking and group study are allowed. As you go up, there is less and less noise allowed, and the third floor is a no talking, no cell phone zone. The zones are green, yellow, and red.

Class Matters: Solutions for All Mankind

“The challenge for educators is to create an environment that encourages students to pose thoughtful questions about problems and issues that they care about.” Read more here.

Educators serve as the link between success and humanity. The article we read on ProQuest states that the challenge for educators is to “encourage kids to pose thoughtful questions about problems and issues they care about” so that they may use their creativity toward making a better world for humanity. Through this process, educators effectively stimulate the youth of today so that they use their imagination, knowledge, and morality to solve the problems of the status quo. Moreover, Libraries serve as an outlet for all knowledge. Through libraries and instructors, children may shape and channel their imagination into constructive solutions for the future. Class Matters provides instances where people fight to survive because of their lack of education. For example, only 41 percent of low income students entering a four year college manage to graduate in five years. However, 66 percent of high income students manage to graduate in the same time frame. The gap is widening. (89) In a country where a degree means a significant difference in pay , their chances of climbing the economic ladder is slim since low income individuals have less of a chance earn a degree (24). If everybody has access to libraries and educators, this world will be much more efficient and the many economic and moral problems that exist today will be fixed.

Class Matters gives examples as to how our society fails but offers no solutions. While there is much good in the world today, it is also obvious that evil seems to suffocate most of humanity. From ruthless and greedy politicians to devastating economies, people fail to seek true meaning in life such as truth, passion and love. It seems as though their selfishness and arrogance prevents those who have control from improving the quality of life for all. Lawrence H Summers, the president of Harvard stated, “We need to recognize that the most serious domestic problem in the United States today is the widening gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor, and education is the most powerful weapon we have to address that problem” (89). Through education, the evident problems made apparent by books like Class Matters, can be surrounded by creative minds, destroyed, giving way to peaceful solutions offering a better world for all people.