This article – Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google – from Forbes, a US business magazine, is a great read. It is especially inspiring for librarians in schools and those working in companies. Here are some particularly good quotes:
As a former corporate lawyer, I owe much of my success to effective research skills that evolved, with the help of skilled trainers, as new tools came along. As a former executive officer at a company that had 1,200 employees in 29 countries worldwide, I know that without adequate media literacy training, kids will not succeed in a 21st-century workplace
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In a recent study of fifth grade students in the Netherlands, most never questioned the credibility of a Web site, even though they had just completed a course on information literacy. When my company asked 300 school students how they searched, nearly half answered: “I type a question.” When we asked how students knew if a site was credible, the most common answers were “if it sounds good” or “if it has the information I need.” Equally dismal was their widespread failure to check a source’s date, author or citations.
This is troubling for it implies that information literacy training, at least in this specific Dutch case, is failing. One possible explanation is laziness – critical evaluation of information takes longer than simply applying the first thing you find. Yet, I am reluctant to accept the suggestion that laziness is the whole explanation.
Students at many elite schools are learning critical 21st century skills while librarians are eliminated from budget-stressed school districts. The result? What a University College of London study called a “new divide,” with students who have access to librarians “taking the prize of better grades” while those who don’t have access to school librarians showing up at college beyond hope, having “already developed an ingrained coping behaviour: they have learned to ‘get by’ with Google.
I’m very conflicted about this observation. On the one hand, it clearly demonstrates the critical contribution that librarians make to education. On the other hand, it highlights just how great the challenges are to bringing education to all. I do believe that everybody has the right to participate in a rich education and that librarians have an important role. Without the foundation of skills to do research, find relevant information and evaluate it, college and university study becomes close to impossible and career success is equally undermined. If you’re still coming across people that think that Internet search engines eliminate the need for librarians, here’s yet another way to show them the error of their ways.
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Thank you for your observations on our article. I don’t think the paragraph about the Netherlands study shows that information literacy training is failing – just that most students need to be retrained – or perhaps reprogrammed more effectively captures the challenge – to go about finding information in the correct manner. It can be done, if school districts recognize the challenge and properly allocate resources to address it. My company is doing its part by working closely with librarians and other educators to develop free tools and content that teach students how to use the Web effectively.
Thanks for commenting Mark, I’m happy to continue the conversation. In thinking about the issue further, I think another key issue raised by the Dutch study is the whole question of assessing information literacy (IL) training. It is provided to many students and in many different contexts yet evidence on its effectiveness is far from robust though one hears many good stories to that effect. I attending a presentation by an academic science librarian last year who had much success with information literacy when she worked with a professor to make IL into a course assignment. That way, information literacy is even better aligned with student motivation.