Prom is Coming

"Other duties as assigned."

I never would have guessed that prom sponsor
was one of them.

The prom committee hosted a glittery fashion show for the school this morning. We appreciated the help of the models, escorts, tech department, backstage dressers, and make-up artists.

Thank you Rusty Crickett's for supplying the beautiful dresses and earrings. The girls sparkled.

Prom is April 21st in Sarasota!

Real-life lessons on information literacy

The trending news stories across the top of the Yahoo page are designed to attract your attention. They rotate quickly, leaving you seconds to decide if you want to click and find out more or if you want to continue on to your intended destination. (In my case, my email.)

Have you noticed that photos of fashion don't include the item in question? Click to learn more. Want to learn what two new celeb parents named their child? Click to learn more. Unorthodox solutions for chapped lips? Click to learn more.

Think about the change from the old days when the headline hooked you into reading more, but also gave more clues about what to expect. But more clicks mean higher ad revenue, and curiosity is a great a great attention-grabber. And it ties (again) into librarians' relevance today. Without editors and fact checkers, how do you know if what you're learning is true?

The big story trending yesterday played into the 99% movement and Occupy Wall Street. At a California restaurant, a banker left a 1% monetary "tip" and a "tip" to get a real job. Turns out Photoshop may have played a role. According to today's news, the whole thing was a publicity hoax.

Here's the thing. Does it matter to the news sites if the news is correct if we're reading the stories anyway? Will some people who were angered by the sentiment of the first receipt still carry some of that anger even though the story is false? Will news sites give me any kind of security that they're making efforts that this sort of thing won't happen again.

Also, as a librarian, I fully realize that there's no reason I should trust either of these receipts. If I wanted to know the truth, I would probably check the local newspaper in Newport Beach or call the restaurant. (Really, I'm not beyond wondering if the restaurant perpetuated this as a way to get publicity.) Having visited the restaurant's website, I can tell you that meals are between $7 and $22, so it's more likely that a banker actually left a 22% tip on a $33 check than that he left a $1 tip after buying lunch for all his friends.

Information literacy lesson that going straight to my students? Absolutely!