UNI IS THE home of many brilliant students with various talents and distinctions, but what about the teachers?

In April 2005, Uni librarian and computer literacy teacher Frances Jacobson Harris published her first book, “I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online” (American Library Association).

The book is now used as a text in library classes at the University of Illinois and other academic programs across the United States. Harris estimates that more than 700 libraries nationwide have a copy of her book.

Given her book’s popularity as a source on the increasingly important topic of teens and the Internet, Harris is working on a second edition.

“I really finished writing it towards August 2004,” she said. “So a lot has changed. For example, if you look in the book, there's no mention of social networking software. There's no mention of Web 2.0. So just from a technology point of view, it needs updating.”

But she also wants to counteract what she calls a rise in “fearmongering in schools” over teen use of the latest communication technology.

“They're closing down access to various types of Internet sources,” she said. “So I'm hoping a new edition of my book will inject a little bit of rationality into the current discourse.”

According to Harris, the second edition will not be out for at least another year, but she will have a little extra help this time around. History department head Billy Vaughn’s anthropology students will help her conduct research as a part of their annual ethnographic project.

“They will be able to get the kinds of information that I can’t as easily,” said Harris of the anthropology students. “There are some personal weaknesses on my part. One would be gaming.”

Every year, the anthropology class does an ethnographic project, which involves observing a group of people at Uni, culminating in a final Web page where they write their observations and conclusions.

"I FOUND IT ON THE INTERNET"

• Author: Frances Jacobson Harris, Uni High librarian
• Publisher: American Library Association
• Originally published: April 2005
• What's new: Harris is working on a revised second edition, with research assistance from Billy Vaughn's anthropology students

This year, Harris will provide a focus to the project and will occasionally check in with the class and talk with the students.

“At first I thought it would be limiting and frustrating,” said senior Ruthie Welch in reaction to the subject of the ethnographic project. “But after I talked to Mr. Vaughn about it, I realized that it was much more pervasive [than I had previously thought]. The Internet affects just about everything we do, and so we have a broad range of topics.”

The first edition of Harris’ book covers topics ranging from what the Internet has to offer teenagers in terms of communication technology to how these technologies have been used and abused.

“I wrote the book that I wanted to read,” said Harris, who has been Uni’s librarian since 1987.

She is also a professor of library administration at the University Library. Her writing has appeared in such professional publications as School Library Media Research. (To see a complete list of her publications, click here for her online vita.)

“A lot of the books that are written for librarians and teachers are ‘how to do it’ books,” Harris said. “In other words, they’re boring. They’re not very thoughtful or thought provoking, so I wanted to write a book that wouldn’t necessarily answer questions but raise them.”

Harris based much of her research on her experiences as a librarian at Uni. The front cover even has old pictures of “pre-Internet” Uni students juxtaposed with a photo of current students, including James Smith and Deborah Ladd (now juniors) and Adriana Black (now a senior).

Even though Harris used many outside studies regarding teens’ usage of the Internet, almost all of the stories and quotes are from Uni students.

With good experience and research to back her up, Harris tackled issues of teenagers abusing or misusing online resources. She also went in depth about public and school libraries across the United States filtering their computers, restricting the Web sites a user can visit.

“Schools are getting paranoid,” said Harris, “because there is this incredible media fear around online predators. The fact is that the kids have a lot more to fear from those they know than those they don’t know.”

She says she wants to shift the focus from Internet predators toward problematic behavior such as texting while driving, which she thinks is much more likely to happen. Apart from that, while the technology has evolved since the book's original publication date, “the issues are pretty much the same,” Harris said.

But there’s also an ulterior motive behind the second edition.

“The real reason I need to update this,” joked Harris, “is because Adriana is so embarrassed by being on the cover, she wants a new book with a new picture.”