Information Navigation 101
By Andrea L. Foster
The recent reading takes a look into the inability of college student’s usage of peer-reviewed articles and scholarly journals. It comes to the attention of professors and campus’s that current college students have become less informed about the quality of information they are finding and where they are finding it. College students have begun to favor Google or Wikipedia as a source of higher education information. The disappointing fact of the matter is these students find this information acceptable. This has stirred and activated a many campuses to promote the use of scholarly materials found within the campus library or databases. Cal State was among the first of colleges to create a program that injected students into the scholarly material and provided instructions on how to navigate and use the university’s online catalog and databases. This imitative has spread to an additional 22 campuses, promoting the information of how to find, sort, analyze, and communicate information.
It is really has been shocking to me how much I have relied on Google and Wikipeida to locate information for college. Library 103 has introduced scholarly journals and databases to me, and they are really just as easy to use as Google. The great thing about these databases is they are user friendly to narrow down search results, so really it is even better than using Google. It has been a great experience to learn how search engines work and understand what to look for when accessing online information. I believe these are all skills that will help student in college and in the future when accessing information. I could really see a large impact if a course similar to LIB 103 was required such as freshman seminar is.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Reading #4
The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google”
By: Steven Bell
Chronicle of Higher Education
Volume 50, Issue 24, Page B15
I believe that Steven makes some great points when he is assessing the competencies and comfort levels of the average students' ability to utilize their library to the fullest. I agree with Steven’s view of these students and even professors who promote the ease of access by using the internet and a common search engines. It is also shocking how many students really do not know how to find information in their library. I for myself am one of those students; I was unable to find this article within the library catalog, lucky there was help on the library blog. I did use Google to locate a copy of the article as well. This is very embarrassing for me, and I believe it is important for students to be educated on the benefits of using a library, rather than always useing a common internet search engine. If the problem is not addressed, I believe students and higher education will continue to drift away from libraries and the complex searches. Library searches do require an extra effort from the users, but it is well worth the kick back of information that is found than compared to results from Google. While we continue to use Google and other popular search engines, these companies themselves will improve their "product" and search capabilities to rival libraries intricacy of information. Out of necessity, due to the lack of introduction and pushing of students to use libraries more specific searches, I believe common search engines like Google will evolve into the higher education source of data. Optimistically common search engines will provide just as good or better results and information to use for reporting, rather than the “infobesity” that is currently found and used by students today from the internet.
-TJ
By: Steven Bell
Chronicle of Higher Education
Volume 50, Issue 24, Page B15
I believe that Steven makes some great points when he is assessing the competencies and comfort levels of the average students' ability to utilize their library to the fullest. I agree with Steven’s view of these students and even professors who promote the ease of access by using the internet and a common search engines. It is also shocking how many students really do not know how to find information in their library. I for myself am one of those students; I was unable to find this article within the library catalog, lucky there was help on the library blog. I did use Google to locate a copy of the article as well. This is very embarrassing for me, and I believe it is important for students to be educated on the benefits of using a library, rather than always useing a common internet search engine. If the problem is not addressed, I believe students and higher education will continue to drift away from libraries and the complex searches. Library searches do require an extra effort from the users, but it is well worth the kick back of information that is found than compared to results from Google. While we continue to use Google and other popular search engines, these companies themselves will improve their "product" and search capabilities to rival libraries intricacy of information. Out of necessity, due to the lack of introduction and pushing of students to use libraries more specific searches, I believe common search engines like Google will evolve into the higher education source of data. Optimistically common search engines will provide just as good or better results and information to use for reporting, rather than the “infobesity” that is currently found and used by students today from the internet.
-TJ
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