Electronic Literacy

Developing Electronic Literacy: The opportunity of mass storage and specific retrieval is both a “blessing and a curse” (Reidling, p.101).  This is a perfect analogy because I am sure everyone has experienced the frustration of trying to find something- weed through the net, but also the satisfaction of finding exactly what you needed without having to go anywhere.

After working on an assignment for another course (reviewing book reviews) I found it interesting that this week’s lesson focuses on electronic resources because I used all electronic sources for my reviews because of time and convenience. Who has time to drive to the library and pick up the journals or magazines anymore? Sad but true.

 In an age where we turn to the computer or google for everything I think it is critical we focus on building the skills students need for working with information and applying it. To put it in perspective I subscribe to a bunch of mother’s online magazines, I receive articles via email and although they may not be the most accurate, they are convenient and easy to access. I imagine when students leave our libraries and educational buildings they will sign up for things like this- interest and convenience based.

They need the skills to look at many things when wading through the massive amounts of information on any topic including the: date and age of information, the biases presented (because most likely there will be something) and the target audience the material was intended for and type of material presented- fact, fiction, editorial, study etc.  Maybe it is back to the basics. We ask the kids to reverse their approach and use pieces of text to teach bias and stereotype and then hope they apply it? I think I will jump into the rollercoaster of the online resources and attempt to teach students wading skills, detective skills, and application skills.  

When reading Chapter 10:  The Web in Today’s Reference Services, I felt a bit overwhelmed with the section discussing search engine options because I am not too familiar with any search engine other than- can you guess? GOOGLE. I wonder how many search engines are used in schools? TLs if you are reading this- what do you use in the school library?

In response to the question posed by A. Letain, “Are those of us who support both print and electronic reference sources fighting a losing battle? How do student preferences for electronic resources affect your purchasing?”

I have to say that because I am not purchasing yet, have no prior biases about past budgets etc. but instinctually I would still like to see a balance. Our school district subscribes to world book online- that is our district supported reference resource. When looking for answers to questions I think students look electronically if given the choice. Thinking back to the section on weeding it is also hard to justify spending chunks of the budget on books that in theory are outdated in 5 yrs. So maybe we purchase fiction, subscribe to fact? Hmmm.

I am not surprised the conclusions of the study referenced on lesson 4 about the impact of electronic resources on undergraduate students mirrored some of my own thoughts about accessing information. It was no surprise to see students are “heavily dependent” on the web and convenient.  (ttp://www.epic.columbia.edu/eval/find09/find09.ppt, ppt slide 42)