Reading Assignment #2

Title: Information Navigation 101. By: Foster, Andrea L., Chronicle of Higher Education,
00095982, 3/9/2007, Vol. 53, Issue 27

Database: Academic Search Premier
http://0-search.ebscohost.com.uncclc.coast.uncwil.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=
aph&AN=24514243&site=ehost-live

This article presents us with a fairly common issue among college students. The problem is that most students know how to work the latest and greatest technology for entertainment, but when it comes to knowing how to find reliable information online, they don’t really know what they are doing. One person quoted in the article even stated that “students think they know more than they do.” The article tells us that this “information literacy” that most college students are lacking will have an effect on them not only now, but in their future careers as well.
Knowing how to find information online seems easy enough. Just type in what you want to know on a search engine or in Wikipedia and see what you get back. Most of the time, according to this article, students believe that the first thing they come upon is correct. However, with so many publicly run and edited sites out there, it is difficult to tell what is the truth. The article states that this is one reason that some professors prefer the use of printed materials only. Teaching students how to find correct, relevant information online is important. With a generation that is so dependent on technology, it would be wrong for us to continue allowing people to misuse their resources.
While knowing how to find general information on the internet is important, a lot of college materials are cataloged online. Knowing how to properly use the databases at your exposal is also very important. Knowing how to use these can save you a lot of time searching aimlessly for something you may not know is from a reliable source.
I think that it is important to teach students about information literacy. This article seems to be against making sure that students have the skills they need to more efficiently seek out and find information. In my experience, it would have been great to have an information literacy course when I was a freshman in college. Perhaps even before. I found myself, more than once, in a futile search for information. I spent hours doing research, only to find out that the sources I used were not as reliable as I thought they were. Knowing what the most reliable sources are and how to find reliable information on the internet in a more efficient fashion would have been a profound help to me. I hope that more colleges implement classes that teach information literacy. This library course we are enrolled in is helping us to learn how to use the library more efficiently. This will help us to be able to find information we need, and weed out the rest.