Doug Johnson

Praise for media specialists who…
Head for the Edge, Technology Connection, June 1995

• Only read the newspaper in the lounge.
• Don’t publish overdue lists.
• Read with a pencil in hand.
• Always find a book “just like the last one.”
• Rescue lost computer files.
• Exemplify the tenets of intellectual freedom and copyright.
• Keep learning.
• Give up a lunch hour to track down a reference question at another library.
• Write and phone their legislators.
• Lead the way in inclusive education.
• Have mastered skills not yet invented when last in college.
• Give you a lift when you break down on the Information Super Highway.
• Remember media centers are the only place some children feel comfortable in school.
• Teach you how to make “hanging indents.”
• Serve on deadly dull curriculum meetings after school.
• Volunteer at the public library.
• Serve on new building planning committees.
• Buy posters from personal funds.
• Say “anything’s possible,” rather than “no.”
• Don’t charge overdue fines.
• Have found a way to somehow serve every teacher on staff.
• Use “voices” when they read, and let children act out Three Billy Goats Gruff
• Don’t agree with everything they read in professional journals.
• Encourage students use the drawing and painting programs on the computer.
• Have media centers open both the first and last days of school.
• Don’t hesitate to confront the principal about bad policy.
• Attend professional conferences, in and out of the field.
• Recommend Roald Dahl and fight to keep books about ghosts and witches.
• Make the world richer for nearly everyone with whom they work.