Reading Report 5

“Information Navigation 101”
By Andrea Foster
Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i27/27a03801.htm

The article begins by saying that students today can so some many things whether it is texting, using MySpace and so on but they are not able to find academic research as easily. The article says that the student populations today is not used to using things like databases and resort to things like Google for their research needs. The article also discusses how schools are trying to solve this problems by having librarians teach this information to students whether it is offered as a class or as a requirement in a core class. Learning how to find this information and access it is now being referred to as “information literacy.” The article then goes on to discuss the history of how this problem came about. The article finally talks about how few people question that information literacy is a problem and how some schools are requiring students to take standardized tests that have been made in order to graduate.

This article really makes you think about students today. It does not really surprise me that students do not know how to find this information. I personally did not know about all of the things the library had to offer until this class. I knew there were databases and scholarly information but how to use them and the different information that they offer was not something I knew about. I do think that schools should be making it a requirement for students. I also think that classes should be required early in the college curriculum because students will get more use out of the information if they know about it earlier.