Dec 15 2006
Libraries v Google? No.
At the end of my last posting I mentioned libraries separating ideas. I was feeling very philosophical at that point. I had been pondering something that David Weinberger had mentioned during his SETT presentation. He was talking about traditional methods of organising knowledge and how these no longer suit our electronic formats. At one point he said that libraries separate ideas. At the time I thought “I suppose he is right”. For example some books deal with information that could be classified at biology, geography or sociology. A physical object has to be placed somewhere and it can only go in one place. But this passing thought stuck with me over the next few weeks, popping to the front from time to time - making me think about the role of librarians. Electronic information sources might lead to the thought that librarians are no longer necessary, after all you only have to type in to Google what you want to know and it’s bound to be there, right?
I have come to the conclusion that librarians are just as necessary now as we have always been and literature, information, art etc in electronic format is no more a threat to the librarian than the introduction of computers in the classroom is to the teacher. It allows us to take a different approach to achieve the same ends we have aways striven to achieve; literate students who have the ability to exploit our collection of resources, in whatever format, to carry out research. Students who are given the oppportunity to acquire and develop both the literacy and information literacy skills needed today in our electronic age if they are to succeed in education, work and life. Students who use Google but effectively and not simply to copy and paste, ie. plagiarise, information. Students whose creative abilites have grown as a result of reading books.
I would argue that the role of librarians and libraries has not altered from the time of the first libraries - only the packaging has changed.
