Reading Report #5

“Information Navigation 101”By Andrea Foster Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i27/27a03801.htm

This article discusses how much technology college students use this day and time. With technology students can text, use Facebook and MySpace and can put songs and create playlists for their iPods. However, when it comes to using technology for research in college, students can be inept. The article says that the student populations today are not used to using things like databases and they automatically resort to Google or Wikipedia for their research needs. The article also discusses how schools are trying to solve these problems by having librarians teach this information to students. Whether it is offered as a class or as a requirement in a core class, they will learn it. “Information literacy” is being referred to learning how to find this information and access it. The article ends by discussing how few people question that information literacy is a problem and how some schools are requiring students to take standardized tests that have been made in order to graduate.

This article really makes you think about students today. It does not really surprise me that students do not know how to find this information. Personally as a college student, I use Facebook and text and all other types of technology, but a lot of times I also find myself resorting to Google. I try not to take the easy way out but sometimes that is all you can. Also, I did not know about all of the things the library had to offer until taking this class. I knew there were databases and scholarly information but how to use them and the different information that they offer was not something I was familiar with. I think schools should make a requirement for students to take a class to learn about information literacy and all the things libraries offer and the resources available to them. I think that these classes should be offered early on to, maybe even starting in high school, so students are familiar with them early in life. The sooner they know about it, the sooner they will take advantage of all that is offered to them.