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Library is Dead.
Long Live the Library...
continued
What
Happens Now?
Other teachers deliberately show students sites full of bad information. At the College, chemistry professor Robert Q. Thompson and science librarian Alison Ricker developed a course to teach students how to find, assess, and present chemical information. Early in the class, the students are given three articles to read on acid rain: one from a peer-reviewed journal, one from Scientific American, and one from a Web site that looks convincingly like a scientific journal. Only the Web site maintained that there was no threat from acid rain. However, closer inspection reveals that a carbon fuel corporation with an ax to grind sponsored the site and deliberately made it look like a scientific paper. "We teach them to investigate who the author is, the background of the Web page, where it is located, and something about who posted it," Thompson says. Presumably, by the end of the course, students are much better at separating the signal from the noise. Beyond schools and colleges, there's evidence that the general public is growing more skeptical of the information it sees on the Web. A recent national Yankelovich poll found that 74 percent of people surveyed completely agreed with the statement that "It's hard to know if the information on the Internet is trustworthy." When all is said and done, academics, librarians, and even Internet professionals don't think the traditional library will go the way of the punch card reader or the UNIVAC. And according to the Yankelovich survey, the average American doesn't want it to, either. Only 38 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement "I can learn more spending the day on the Internet than I can spending the day in the library." Let's not forget that libraries are still the critical points of access for the electronic databases of academic research that are prohibitively expensive for the individual. Specialized databases are often prepared expressly for sale to libraries. Their publishers expect the library to distribute the information free, or, if someone requests a more detailed study, the person or the library is then charged for the full report. The availability of electronic resources can even democratize libraries, with small institutions serving as gateways to a vast range of resources. In fact, libraries may be moving from a "just in case" philosophy to a "just in time" credo. In the pre-digital age, libraries built their collections by buying certain books because they were important, "just in case" someone might need them some day. The digital revolution has enabled libraries to consider a "just in time" approach, meaning that the library can produce on demand an article or book when someone requests it--even if the library does not already own the material. And from a purely human perspective, it's very possible that libraries may grow in importance as community meeting places--add in an espresso machine and you've got a cyber cafe. People can gather and hang out even as "they're going on the Web and searching for different things," says Elliot Shelkrot '65, president and director of Philadelphia's Free Library. But
whatever the initial dazzle of the 'Net and the Web, it's
important to remember that they are still just technologies
that are ultimately subject to human control. If teachers
and librarians had their way, we could help keep these technologies
in check by developing an acute sense of skepticism.
"Thinking is more than data processing," reminds Kornblith. "It's being able to sharpen questions, reorganize information, and see patterns that aren't immediately obvious. The Web can't help you with that. You need the on-site library." Mrty Munson is a freelance writer and editor based in New York City.
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Librarians
aren't battling this alone: Information literacy
has become a new academic crusade. Kornblith, for one, starts
off his students by showing them good sites, such as