Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

editorial lurray or ^^ very thing! Paul C. Reed That's an exuberant title for an editorial if we ever saw one! Its inspiration is the "exuberant slogan" being used this year for the second time to herald Children's Book Week coming early in November. Children's Book Week is a full blown promotion. There are attractive posters in three languages, folders, seals, bookmarks, book party quiz kits, tea napkins, book party pencils, and probably assorted whatnots All these will proclaim the slogan with more exuberance than thought, HURRAY FOR BOOKS! In big cities, children's book fairs will be city-widely promoted. Everywhere librarians, book sellers and publishers, teachers, and some book readers too will be shouting, "Hurray for Books," because that's what they're being told to do. So what is so good about a book that isn't also good about a motion picture, a filmstrip, a record, a radio program, a television program, a set of slides, a magazine, a program for a teaching machine? All these are but the materials for communicating idea, for inspiring, for motivating, for giving enjoyment and pleasure. There is nothing exclusively inherently good about a book. A book is but a means. We've seen plenty of books not worth a second glance. We've seen hundreds of others not worthy of even the faintest hurrah. If we fall into the traps set by "Madison Avenue promoters" and without thinking raise our cheers for a particular communication form, we will deserve the inevitable consequences. Hurraying for books is silly. It can lead to worshipping ink and idolizing the paper upon which words are printed. We'll respond as directed with double hurrahs for hard cover books and little cheers for paperbacks. If we are to pick out each and every medium of communication and following the commands of vested interests campaign in favor of each one we'll be in a competitive mess. We'll be having an Hurray for Films Week and an Hurray for Recordings campaign. We'll have to promote with national weekly celebrations, radio programs and children's televiewing; and we'll even have special weeks for flannel boards and wet mounted pictures. We'll have to Hurray for Everything, one medium at a time. Now don't get us wrong. Don't misinterpret our point of view. We're not opposed to books nor the words that are in them. We know that for those who can read and those who want to read there's no medium that is more effective than printed symbols. But the twentieth century with its technological advances has already brought forth a dozen new media for comunication. None are competitive with the printed word. All are complementary to the printed word. Everyone concerned with the transmission of information and ideas from people to people; everyone who is involved with the teaching process must recognize the interrelationships among all forms of communication. We must leam to use all media intelligently and well. We must leam which medium is best for communicating what to whom and under what conditions. Books are no good as a means for communicating ideas to people who can't or who won't read. So let's all together give out with one great HUZZA FOR EVERYTHING-for all the different communication fonns and get the exuberance out of our systems. Then let us settle down to a more intelligent appraisal and understanding of all media. Let us become far more concerned about what is being communicated to whom than with the form h\ which the communication is carried. lCATioN.\L Screen and AuDiovisf al Guide^-^September, 1961 483