Consciousness of disinformation

[Elizabeth Felt]

Increasingly, teachers at my university are *requiring* their students to
use the Web for research, and encouraging them to do this before using
the library. Many of those students don't bother ever using the library,
as the web is so convient.

I have taught a number of "user education"
classes where the teaching assistant wanted me to explain how to find
information on the Web.  I am pleased when asked to do this, as I can show
students how important it is to evaluate the information they find.  Most
of them realize that anyone can publish anything on the Web, but they
haven't put  2 and 2 together to realize that what they find on the web
might be inaccurate or worse.

Unfortunately, the percentage of students getting instruction from
librarians about the use of the web is small, compared to the numbers
doing their research there.

The WSU Libraries have been helping to train the lab monitors who work in
some of the campus computer labs.  This is in order that the monitors are
comfortable and competent at training others to use the library catalog
and other databases.  It would be good to extend this training to include
the evaluation of web material.

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth Caulfield Felt
Reference Librarian
Washington State University
Pullman, WA  99164-5610
509-335-8957
felt at wsu.edu
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/faculty/felthp.htm
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