Reading #5

Mallory Phillips

November 3, 2009

LIB 103

Reading #5

Information Navigation 101

By: Andrea L. Foster

Many people these days rely heavily on technology. College officials believe that students are unaware of how to do scholarly research because they easier, more simple search engines such as Google. This causes problems because students are not using reliable material for their academic research. Colleges are trying to encourage students to use more scholarly material by offering instruction on how to be more information literate. The vice president of Educause states that we all go to the Internet because it is more convenient, but it is important that we all develop research skills in order to effectively use it. Faculty members are frustrated with student’s overreliance on Google and other search engines because they feel that student’s do not know the difference between peer-reviewed scholarly sources and random Internet pages with false information. Since colleges are requiring graduates to be information literate, they are now giving tests to ensure this.

I do not necessarily believe that just because students use Google as opposed to libraries means that they are not information literate. Google has a lot of unreliable information, but it also includes scholarly stuff. The only reason why students use Google is because it is something that has been around for the majority of their lives and that is what is familiar to them. We did not start using libraries scholarly sources until we got to college. So, I think that we use Google more just because it is easier. I am glad that schools are incorporating these classes to help people become more information literate, and I think that once students complete classes like these then they will begin to rely of Google less and less.