Excerpted from the Chronicle on Higher Education...
(sidebar: the original editorial referenced here appeared first in the Washington Post and was reprinted in the Houston Chronicle in the past few days, which is where I read it; It depressed the crap out of me. I think it was an accurate depiction of the way things are and are going, but as I remarked to my mom, that doesn't mean I have to like it...)=====================================================
January 23, 2007
Wanted: Librarian. Book Lovers Need Not Apply.
As more and more librarians become "media specialists" or "information technologists," what happens to librarians who remain chiefly interested in collecting books, not in promoting information literacy? They get a bit jaundiced, writes Thomas Washington, the librarian at a school in the Washington area.
In an editorial for The Washington Post, Mr. Washington bristles at the notion that libraries should be helping students navigate "the digital forest of information overload" instead of getting people to the stacks:
The buzzword in the trade is "information literacy," a misnomer, because what it is really about is mastering computer skills, not promoting a love of reading and books. These days, librarians measure the quality of returns in data-mining stints. We teach students how to maximize a database search, about successful retrieval rates. What usually gets lost in the scramble is a careful reading of the material.
Mr. Washington's skeptical take on information-literacy training is debatable. But the piece is worth reading because of its underlying point: that bibliophiles may find modern library jobs unrewarding. Have the requirements for library work changed over the past decade, or is Mr. Washington romanticizing the past? --Brock Read
Mr. Washington is forgetting that books are just a vehicle for getting ideas and information to others. There is nothing wrong with being a lover of books but I bet the monks that wrote on parchment felt much the same way as Mr. Washington
when Gutenberg printed his first books. It is the information that is important, not the medium!
— Bill Drew Jan 23, 05:01 PM #
As a parent, I think it is my job to promote a love of lifelong learning which for me includes “a love of reading and books”.
As a librarian, it is my job to help others find the books, information and data that promote their love of lifelong learning. That love of learning may be enriched in the laboratory, in the field, in a national park, in the coffee shop or in library stacks.
“Information literacy” may be jargon, but it is also a necessary set of skills that will enable lifelong learners of this century to pursue their passion in a world that is very different from the 20th century. “Information literacy” refers to a set of skills that will prepare our children to participate in a 21st century global workforce.
— Terry B Jan 23, 05:38 PM #
I think the key phrase that I took away from Washington’s article is the following: “ What usually gets lost in the scramble is a careful reading of the material.” My own perceptions of working in the academic library field has been that the newer technologies, unlike the more traditional monograph, make it far easier to deal in snippets-“paper soundbites”, if you will-rather than truly wrestling with academic content. Utilizing the book format is more likely to force a student to devote the time to understanding their work topic; the newer web technologies of the past decade have definitely made it easier to be distracted, to click on that next embedded link, to not read the whole document, etc-in short, to not really follow through with the “guts” of research that are often needed for true mastery.
— Shannon R. Jan 23, 06:00 PM #
My job, as librarian, is to facilitate access to information…in any format. It’s exciting to discover what else we have access to electronically every day. It’s equally thrilling to find just the right article or book for a patron.
It would be better if students and the public in general did not believe that “everything they need, information wise, is available on the Internet for free.” Not everything is available on the Internet and the scholarly databases are not free. Sometimes patrons have to find information “the old fashioned way”; in a book. There again, formats have changed with the evolution of ebooks. They’re great resources.
After finding the information, it’s important to read the material and then apply critical thinking skills to determine how the information fits into essays and term papers.
I agree with the author of comment #1, it’s the ideas that are presented that are important. The format is irrelevant.
Electronic formats facilitate access to more information for more people. It’s a win win situation and just as exciting and rewarding for this librarian.
— P A Martin Jan 23, 06:18 PM #