Reading Response #4

The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google
By Steven J. Bell the director of the library at Philadelphia University

Summary:

“Infodiet” vs. “Infobesity” is a great way to explain the main subject of this article. In short this article discusses how most students would rather have an abundance of information (whether it’s of good quality or not) rather than have good quality full text articles. Students like to be able to have one search box and punch in simple key word phrases and get back an abundance of relevant and related articles to use for research. Most students lacking information literacy fail to verify whether the information they receive is substantial. This article compares databases, even those scholarly ones, to google. Google being the most known and widely used search engine makes it relatively easy to find information and web sites pertaining to the information keyed in the search box. It returns hundreds sometimes thousands of results. This article explains how most databases now are more concerned with the quantity of full text articles as oppose to the quality making it more like a search engine than a scholarly database.

My Response:

As a student of course we like to have information fast and easy however in response to this article I agree that if we were taught how to use the databases then we would use them more frequently. Before taking English as a junior I had no clue that those databases even existed better yet how to use them. I understand that they are an expensive thing to have access to but if there was a way to be exposed to them earlier such as high school or even middle school then they would be more widely used. In addition to the students not really being informed on how to use them or where they are or how or how to access them I believe as Americans our emphasis is elsewhere. We should be more concerned about school and education and pay our teachers more (K-12 and higher education) and invest more money into books, databases, and other types of information earlier. In high school most of my teachers were happy enough that students turned in work and weren’t always that concerned about the quality. Not to say that I’d never had a teacher that cared, or that there aren’t plenty of teachers who do care. But just like on any other job when the workers are cared for they produce better quality work, and in this case teachers’ work are our next doctors and lawyers and even the doctors that will be saving lives. It’s amazing how necessities in life such as information and health care become the most expensive. The things we put a dollar on!