Monday, August 6, 2018

Sleuth of the Shelves

Most of the librarians I remember, at school and otherwise, were pretty cool people (a couple in the research room at the old public library were a little eccentric and kind of aloof, if I remember). But none of them were as cool as the Sherlock Holmes of librarians who helped a young student discover who had altered her English paper to insert some highly problematic language.

Writer and librarian Jennifer Iacopelli used her library's security camera, computer login data and sign-in sheets to learn who inserted the off-color statements and words into an online document that the student had left open when she walked away from the computer. Those three earned some in-school suspension time while the innocent student's penalty at home was lifted.

Iacopelli said that the lesson to be learned was that the librarian is better at technology than you are and will figure out who you are if you did something wrong. I agree, but I would add that the other lesson learned is you always log out of everything when you leave a public computer.

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