Reading Report #4

"The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google"
Steven Bell, Chronicle of Higher Education
2/20/2004, Vol.50 Issue 24

In this article, Steven Bell, library director at Philadelphia University, addresses the concerns of libraries and librarians nation-wide about the decline in the ability of students to perform research adequately and in their desire to decrease the time and effort it takes to find the material they want. In this sense, Bell argues that libraries are torn between following the search system and interface of Google, which produces a vast amount of low-quality material, or rejecting it and facing the prospect of losing students to the internet search engine. He states that the problem lies not only with students in the library, but also with database producers, who for too long have competed in a consumer-market mentality that has focused on gaining business than on improving interface interaction, and faculty members, who haven’t used their considerable power and influence to change students’ research behavior. Fortunately, Bell discusses two recent releases from database producers with improved interfaces and other features that make navigation easier, and he offers suggestions on how librarians can involve faculty members to improve the research of students.

This article was unsettling. I personally have never had any problems with research, but then again, research in my major is mostly viewing movies and reading essays by film critics and theorists, not scientific research. With that, I still feel like I perform research fairly adequately. Basically, students are getting so lazy that librarians and database producers have to change their systems and interfaces to emulate Google in order to persuade students to do research properly. Perhaps this is the way of the future, though my first feeling is embarrassment. However, I’m most glad that the database producers are stepping up to the challenge instead of increasing the divide between the proper resources for academic research and easy to use internet search engines.