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re: libraries seeming to be at the bottom of the food chain, Scott--do you think that this would be different if you didn't ask college undergraduates who almost all had access to computers and laptops and iPHones.etc etc. How might these questions and responses based on one's socio-economic class ? Here is where a library might fill that significant and ever-growing gap in our society like especially, right now. Just some thoughts, Karen Weaver Karen Weaver, MLS, Adjunct Faculty, Cataloging & Classification The iSchool at Drexel University, Philadelphia PA email: [log in to unmask] Electronic Resources Statistician, Duquesne University, Gumberg Library, Pittsburgh PA email: [log in to unmask] On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 4:50 AM, Scott Barker <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > This past week I sat in on INFO 200, Foundations of Informatics - a broad > survey course that is taken by about 75 undergraduate students each quarter > who are interested in potentially majoring in our program. The students in > the class represent a wide variety of interests and perspectives from across > the campus. > > Mike Eisenberg was teaching and the topic of the day was "Information > Seeking Behavior". The students were assigned a variety of Information > Behavior related readings and Mike talked about the work of folks like > Brenda Dervin and Karen Fisher (who is on our faculty) with her Information > Grounds concept. > > The students in class were discussing a variety of scenarios, such as how > they sought health information, how they sought information necessary to > complete a class research paper, how they sought information on what product > to purchase and so on. > > During the discussion Mike asked the students about their own information > seeking behavior for these scenarios. When asked if they sought > information primarily by talking to friends just a few hands went up. > When asked if they sought information primarily from family or others they > had high trust in such as teachers or doctors just a couple hands went up. > When asked if they primarily sought information through libraries or > librarians almost no hands went up. When asked if they sought information > primarily through Google, almost all hands went up. > > I think even we were surprised at how few students said they talked to > other people as their primary way of seeking information and how dominant > Google was - even for information that you'd think you'd want to rely on a > trusted source for such as medical information. > > Based on that small and non-scientific sample, at least for a large number > of our undergraduate students, libraries appear to be close to the bottom of > the "information-seeking food chain". Even for a scenario such as seeking > information for a class research paper, libraries come up short by a mile > for the vast majority of students compared to Google. > > Probably not a big surprise, but something to ponder! > > Scott Barker > Information School > University of Washington > > >