Study: How College Students Use the Web

[gary]

Hello from D.C.

Some interesting and useful reading in The Chronicle today. 


"Survey Finds That Students Use the Web but Recognize Its Limitations" 
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/07/2002071901t.htm

Some must read material that's also very scary. It's also more fuel for the "we need to do a better 
job marketing what we offer" fire. 

>From the article, The report, titled "OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College 
Students," says that almost 80 percent of the surveyed students use Internet search engines 
for "every" assignment or "most" assignments. That's far more than those who glean information from 
their library Web portals or their class Web sites, each of which comprised about 50 percent of the 
respondents." 

The Chronicle article also contains a few comments from Mark Y. Herring, a librarian at Withrop 
University. Herring says, "Anybody can put anything up, so you have a real danger of students doing 
a search on the Internet and getting the Unabomber's rantings about technology and using that in a 
paper as if they are the same as Neil Postman's [scholarly writings]. That's the problem -- 
students don't see the difference in that." The study also reports that only 20% of the students 
will go to a librarian for assistance when beginning their research. Herring blames librarians for 
this problem. He says, "Librarians are much to blame for this. Many of us have met the 
stereotypically dour librarian who can't get up or can't be bothered." 
 

You can access the full-text of the OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College Students 
http://www2.oclc.org/oclc/pdf/printondemand/informationhabits.pdf



cheers,
gary


-- 

Gary D. Price, MLIS
Librarian
Gary Price Library Research and Internet Consulting
gary at freepint.com

The Virtual Acquisition Shelf and News Desk 
http://resourceshelf.freepint.com