Re: ADM: How to get students to use books instead of Internet

["Dr. Allan O'Grady Cuseo" <acuseo@greeceny.com>]

How do you persuade students that often, especially for historical
topics,
that a book is the BEST resource?  Do you limit the pages they can
printout--Do your teachers limit the electronic resources they can
use--Do
you require that they search for books first?

I hope someone comes up with better answers than I have so far. Since we
have had the Internet (several years now) we have had a ton of ribbons
and paper consumed. The paper is not that expensive but the price of the
ribbons is killing my budget. Often, what is being printed is, in my
opinion, not worth printing. But then, it is my opinion what is to be
printed? We dont let the students access the "questionable" sites and
this becomes a horrific monitoring activity. Printing 15 pages for the
information is 2 paragraphs seems to be the current problem. We have
taught them how to cut and paste to no avail. It is much easier to push
the print button (several times usually) and, often, we have jammed
printers. I would rather move the printers to a controlled area (behind
the circ desk,backroom, etc) but then a staff member would have to
assume the responsibility to monitor the printing. I would also prefer
to charge for the printing. I am expecting a laser printer any day now
and this will further compound the problem as the paper will be more
expensive. I am still trying to get consensus among my staff as to a
solution to this one.

I do not require students to use books before they may use the Internet.
It reminds me of an earlier discussion in the 1960s concerning whether
students should use hardcovers before paperbacks. Another debate in
library land featured the question - should students have access to
magazines before books?

Knowledge is knowledge and the best source for some things may be the
Internet. I try to teach them the problems inherent with an unsupervised
(unedited) newsource but, of course, few listen. When the #1 periodical
in the land is TV Guide it is difficult to discuss authority of
information sources.

I have few answers on this one. Maybe there aren't any answers.

Allan
--
Dr. Allan O'Grady Cuseo
Greece Arcadia High School Library
Rochester, New York 14612
acuseo@greeceny.com

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