I.T. Littleton Seminar Welcomes Matt Ratto, University of Toronto

On May 9, 2013, Matt Ratto, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, will present his talk Why Johnny Can't Read (an iPhone): Literacy, Maker Spaces, and the Modern Library,  as the featured speaker at the NCSU Libraries' I.T. Littleton Seminar. The seminar will be held at 2:00 p.m. in the Auditorium at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on NC State's Centennial Campus.

Ratto will explore how new technologies are dominating the educational landscape and transforming how people experience, share, and communicate about the world. Educational institutions and libraries are grappling with how to incorporate and provide access to these technologies, while addressing their critical issues and problems. Ratto suggests that the ˜maker movement' presents an opportunity for these institutions to engage and promote a socio-technical literacy that emphasizes not just technical skills, but individuals' ability to make sense of the sociality of these new technologies.

Matt Ratto is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto and Director of the Semaphore research cluster on Inclusive Design, Mobile and Pervasive Computing. He also leads ThingTank Lab, a non-profit lab space and research project examining and designing the Internet of Things. Matt's research examines how hands-on productive work “ making “ can supplement and extend critical reflection on the relations between digital technologies and society. This work builds upon the new possibilities offered by open source software and hardware, as well as the developing technologies of 3D printing and rapid prototyping. These technologies and the social collectives that create, use, and share them provide the context for exploring the relationship between ˜critical making' and ˜critical thinking.'

The annual I. T. Littleton Seminar is funded by an endowment established in 1987 to explore key issues in the development of academic libraries and to honor former Library Director Littleton upon his retirement from NC State. The Libraries welcomes your continued support of the I. T. Littleton Seminar series. If you would like to make a contribution to support future seminars, please send your check, payable to the Friends of the Library, to: Friends of the Library, NCSU Libraries, Box 7111, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7111. Please note I. T. Littleton Seminar Endowment on your check. For more information, please call (919) 515-7315 .