Well, here’s the part where I sign myself up for lots of hate mail, but I
actually agree with much of what Wilder says. He does not say that
information seeking skills are unnecessary, but he says that for most
people, finding the information is not the most important part of a
research project, synthesizing that information is. The way I see it, the
information retrieval part should be as efficient as possible so that
students have more time to think about and use the materials.
So, pressed for time, students can either jump on Google, or they can
through the long, laborious steps that we have set out for them in our
information literacy programs. Which would you choose? He’s not saying
that the Internet offers the best information, but that it offers adequate
information quickly. When he says that students can get through college
without going to the library, he is not praising this method. Indeed he
says, “That is unfortunate because, for all its strengths, the Internet
cannot give students the high-quality scholarly information that is
available only through subscription, license, or purchase.”
So, how do you get kids to use the library and the scholarly information
we pay for, well, here’s where he and I differ slightly. He talks about
the reading and writing process. I didn’t fully understand how he
intended the library to integrate with this process and I would like to
learn more. He did touch on another approach, one that I embrace:
“Information literacy is also harmful because it encourages librarians to
teach ways to deal with the complexity of information retrieval, rather
than to try to reduce that complexity.” We offer kids a million databases
to look at for each project, plus the books in our collection. It’s
confusing and overwhelming. Why not have one search interface for all of
them? Many automation systems are moving in this direction.
I know that not everyone will agree with the idea of cutting down and
combining interfaces. When I praised these “one stop shopping” options,
older librarians looked askance. They wondered how students would learn
which database’s to turn to in the future. As far as I’m concerned, it
doesn’t matter if a student accesses an article through ProQuest Science
or EBSCO’s Scientific American, as long as they know get the article (and
can properly cite it).
This is an important issue that needs to be discussed and I don’t think
Wilder’s assertions should be dismissed out of hand. He’s not an
outsider. He is a librarian like us. I don’t think his article was meant
as an attack, but as a challenge. I, for one, think it is one we should
embrace.
- Meg
****
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 10:42:22 -0600
From: "Brisco, Shonda" <briscos@TRINITYVALLEYSCHOOL.ORG>
Subject: Re: GEN: Information Literacy Makes All the Wrong Assumptions ??
Okay, start getting angry.....talk about relegating the library and the
librarian to the lowest possible position in education! I think the
maintenance crew would be more valuable to the student than the
librarian, based upon this article's author!
****
Very interesting article in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education /
Chronicle Review:
http://tinyurl.com/5hvxs
Information Literacy Makes All the Wrong Assumptions
************************************************
Megan Frazer
Librarian
Commonwealth School
151 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston, MA 02116
mfrazer@commschool.org
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