“Information Literacy: The ability to access, comprehend, use, and evaluate information.” (Riedling, 2005, P. 134).
One thing I learned recently is that google is becoming “smart” and will present you with the resources that it thinks you want to see and will leave out the ones it thinks you don’t want to see. It does this by keeping track of the search links you click on and remembering which ones you don’t click on. It assumes that you would like to see more results similar to the ones you are clicking on and will present you with these the next time you search. It is becoming “smart” about what kind of information it thinks you are looking for. For example, when googling the search term “poultry” it may present someone who searches for a lot of recipes (such as a chef) with results that tend to include recipes while it might present a farmer with results linked to the care and marketing of chickens. While this may seem handy, what it also means is that you are also not exposed to some of the information that exists. So when you do a search, someone else is censoring the information that is being presented to you and you may not be seeing all of the information. Imagine someone who visits a lot of hate sites. If their searches become more and more focussed on only sites similar to hate sites, are they being offered a balanced view all sides of the story? Or is anyone for that matter? Now, by bringing this up I am not saying that there is extreme censorship happening here and that search results will become extremely one sided, but it does bring up the issue that students need to be taught how to search skilfully so that they can have access to all kinds of information. They should not necessarily be relying on the first page of results from google to present them with the information they might need. In the text, Riedling indicates the importance of the underlying purpose of the role of the Reference Librarian in teaching students how to locate information themselves. “Reference for school library media specialists is more than a skilled technique. It is a profoundly human activity ministering to one of the most basic needs of humans – the desire to know.” (Riedling, 2005, p. 3). As has been stated in lesson 1, the need for having excellent information literacy skills is more important than it has ever been before.
Riedling, A. (2005). Reference SkillsFor the School Library Media Specialist: Tools and Tips, 2nd Edition. Ohio: Linworth Publishing, Inc.
I agree about the new Google - but you can turn the feature off!
ReplyDeleteI also worry about the same thinking as applied to customized newspaper consumption.