"Information Navigation 101" by Andrea L. Foster. Chronicle of Higher Education (3/9/2007)

Reading Report #5

Seth Smithwick

This article starts by telling the reader that technology, communication, and research of information have changed throughout the past years. Technology is being used constantly in peoples everyday lives. They are able to communicate and contact information through mobile phones Internet, ipods, etc. The growth of electronic information is unbelievable how advanced it has become in just the past decade. "The explosion of electronic information is fueling students confusion, say Librarians. The use for libraries is so much less of a need now to people. The librarians talked about when they were in school the only source of information they had was to go to the library. Now anyone ca find out any information they need about a subject over the Internet. Many colleges now are making it mandatory for students to use library sources for research on subjects. This is to help students not loose that desire to research for information like it was done 10 or 15 years ago. People today are becoming too dependent on the Internet for gaining information. Technology is pulling people away from the traditional way of studying and researching. "All of us are now going to the Internet because it's convenient," said DianaG. Oblinger, a vice president of Educause. "Whether this is the world we wanted or not, this is the world we live in, and it's important to help people develop research skills to be effective. I do see how this can effect the way on studies and effects there research skills but in the world we live in, the average college student could probably care less about there researching skills, and would rather use the easy and convenient world wide web to gather and gain there information.