Pluto Gets the Heave-Ho
Former planet’s shrinking status is no biggie for librarians
By Jennifer Pinkowski -- School Library Journal, 10/1/2006
Poor Pluto. Just as the school year began, the International Astronomical Union officially defined what a planet was for the first time—and Pluto didn’t make the cut. It meets only two of the three requirements: it has sufficient self-gravity to give it a round shape and revolves around a star, but it hasn’t “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit—its oblong path crosses Neptune’s. After 76 years at the big kids’ table, Pluto became a “dwarf planet.”
The public outcry was swift. Who knew the ice ball at the lonely rim of the solar system was so beloved? Hundreds of space scientists signed a petition in protest. Teachers fretted about the need for a mnemonic device to replace “my very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas.” Some science book publishers stopped the presses until they could update new editions. And librarians wondered what they were going to do with their collections.
Many put labels or cards in their books. Others used it as an information-literacy tool, showing students the importance of assessing the accuracy and credibility of Web sites. Some decided to wait it out, knowing the money was spent for the year. And many used it as a teaching moment on the scientific process, showing how information is revised as researchers make new discoveries.
This is a benefit of having databases such as EBSCO or Thomson Gale. They can adjust to emerging content pretty painlessly, says Scott Brenier, director of communications at EBSCO Publishing. “By our nature as a database aggregator, we are in a position to show all sides,” says Brenier. “For example, our Science Reference Center database is a large aggregation of many of the top science publications (e.g., Scientific American, Science Teacher), where, presumably, the topic of Pluto will be addressed from a variety of angles.” Dozens of articles about Pluto from the last year alone are accessible through the Science Reference Center. Brenier anticipates EBSCO databases will be enhanced to respond to new search terms—including, of course, “dwarf planet.”
Thomson Gale’s Michael Eisenstein, vice president of learning and research solutions for the K–12 market, says similar adjustments are in the works for its databases. “In our Science Resource Center, Pluto is mentioned as a planet 150 times,” says Eisenstein. “That’s a pretty big job. But we have a pretty big editorial team and product team that will fix that within the next 30 days.” In the coming months, Thomson Gale will acquire new solar system maps, but until then, the maps will be recaptioned to read “pre-August 2006”—a similar tactic to that taken by label-wielding librarians.
Keeping up with the always deepening pool of human knowledge is what librarians do as a matter of course. But that doesn’t mean older materials should necessarily disappear. As Anne Hinchliff, library/IMC manager for California’s Siskiyou County Office of Education, points out, “Don’t we all have books and atlases in our collections containing countries that are now obsolete? Do we throw those away, too? I like to think of it as 'housing history.’ Things change as time goes by.”
