I go to heatsync all the time, I love that place. The only reason I go there, however, and one of the only reasons I even know it exists is because of my expos

I go to heatsync all the time, I love that place. The only reason I go there, however, and one of the only reasons I even know it exists is because of my exposure to technology. Getting more stuff out there and in the hands of kids (and here is the important part: telling them that they can use it however they want to) is what I would love to see. One very important thing that happened to me during my schooling was an amazing teacher that I had for an off-campus computer course that I took. I'm sure that this could have gotten her in a lot of trouble (which is a problem, in my eyes) but when she would leave after class, she would leave the computer lab unlocked for us. This meant that my friend Aaron and I could stay there as late as we wanted working on side projects and seeing what we could make our linux machines do. It was so important for me because it wasn't a class, there was no point to it, it was just 50 very nice workstations and a sortof agreement that if I didn't permanently damage anything, I could use it for whatever it was that I wanted. Now, how does this relate to my wanting to "rethink libraries"? Well, first of all, I want this type of resource (meaning resources to learn with) available to more than just children, but also I want this type of resource to be available with the understanding that you aren't going to get in trouble if you use it for something other than what is in the book. Think about novels: nobody tells you what they mean, or what you're supposed to think of them. That is why the library model (as opposed to the lit class model) works so well. You can go there on your own time, read whatever you want, and think whatever you want about it. I think that offering people the same experience for more than just books is beneficial. What I do not understand is that people seem to be against this sort of thing. Why? I'm not saying to do away with books at all (although I did say "ditch the dead trees", which was a bit over-zealous), I'm saying to rethink libraries so that they include more tools for learning.