Reading Report #5

This article deals primarily with the issue of information literacy among college students across America. It basically is telling us that even though many college students use the World Wide Web for a wide variety of things, there is one area that many students are a little incompetent. Most students do not know how to fully use the tools in their libraries to find reliable sources of information (i.e. scholarly journals), and this is an issue that simply has to change. Many professors and librarians at Cal State Fullerton University are pushing to make information literacy instruction a course in all colleges and universities across the country.

I completely agree with what this article is saying and what it is striving for. Information literacy is a serious problem on campuses everywhere and it really does need to be fixed. I know that throughout my college life I rarely have used the databases offered in Randall Library unless I was forced to do so. I simply used Google to find what I needed, and I after taking this course I realize I would have been much better off had I taken advantage of the resources around me. I feel a little regret in this regard as I am graduating in a few months and I can’t go back and write papers with more reliable sources than I did. I just wish I took this course earlier, and I think it would be a great idea to integrate information literacy instruction into the core curriculum here at UNCW. I think more could be done to raise awareness of the great sources of information that are right at the fingertips of every student at this school.

Reading Assignment #4

This reading talks about the challenges libraries face to get students to use their high tech and sophisticated databases for finding information, instead of getting on Google and finding it within seconds. University and college libraries across the country are facing this problem and it is becoming harder and harder to make young adults “information literate.” The writer of this article proposes a good idea and it goes along with the saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” He thinks libraries should “Google-ize” their libraries and make them easier to use for students. Instead of putting together very complex and specific queries to find a journal article, students should be able to type in simple key words and phrases to find what they are looking for. But he argues that by doing so it would be much harder to find credible and reliable sources on the web.

I like the idea this guy proposes to libraries. I know that is one of the main reasons I never really used the library databases for my research papers or projects (unless my professor made me). The library databases were simply too difficult to use if I was doing it on my own. If they were more user-friendly and I could find information a little easier, I would have used them more often. I also like the idea of everyone who is associated with these databases getting together and getting this done. The producers of the databases need to commit to this too. It is obviously a daunting task and one that would take a lot of effort and creativity, but it can be done and judging by this article, I believe it needs to be done.