Reading Report #5

In the article provided, the topic of information literacy is discussed quite heavily. The article basically covers the actions that libraries and universities together are taking in order to help students move forward from junk information from websites such as Google and Wikipedia to more scholarly based information that yields more credibility. The article begins by indentifying the current issue of students being drowned in online information that is readily available to them. The article then describes the stark comparison between how information was retrieved in recent history to how it is obtained by students today. The article gives staggering statistics to support the growing number of online sources of information. Many universities such as the California State University system have begun to institutionalize the process of information literacy by offering classes to students who may not know any way of retrieving useful information other than through poor mediums such as Google and Wikipedia.
I feel personally that this is a very positive movement towards helping students be more knowledgeable towards acquiring and using scholarly information. If nothing is done about this growing problem now then the problem will continue to spread false and untested information throughout the world. Without anybody to help these students fish through all of the information that is readily available online, it will eventually be impossible to decipher accurate from blatantly false information.