Academic Libraries Versus Google
The Chronicle of Higher Education includes a piece from the Philadelphia University library director in its February 20 issue exploring why academic libraries are better than Google. Steven Bell uses Carnegie Mellon computer science dean James Morris’ term “infobesity” to analogize students’ search for information with a preference for consuming fast food: they often want to find something quickly and they don’t worry about things like quality. He thinks one reason why students often turn to search engines instead of libraries is because of how difficult it is to navigate a library’s resources compared to how easy it is to type something in an Internet search engine. Bell wonders how academic librarians and database vendors can make their resources as easy to use as Google and about other tactics to draw students back to libraries.
