Reading Report #4

The article, “The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google” was quite an enjoyable read, as I could easily relate to many of the points discussed in this work.   Through reading this article, I learned a lot about myself, as many of the reasons mentioned in the article for students choosing search engines like Google over library databases, are many of the same reasons why I also admit to doing this.  As mentioned in the article, the amount of students using library databases over Google is very slim because it is fast, simple to use, and mainly because it entails very little thought or effort in the process.  Although it may be disappointing to witness students taking the easy way out, the reality of the situation is that students are most likely going to choose the method of research that takes less critical thought and gets them the fastest answer.  With this being true, I completely agree with this article in that we should find a good medium between the high quality library databases and the simplicity of search engines so that students can get the best of both worlds.  

I appreciated the author’s humorous use of wordage in this article such as the words infodiet and infobesity and also the way in which he compared Google to the widely known term “supersize it.”  I found it very clever how the author used this comparison to describe to readers that supersizing in reference to food is very similar to the idea of Google being the supersized version of library databases, where it displays an excess amount of results, many times even results that are not relevant to the topic typed in the search bar.  I do agree with the article in that students should use library catalogs much more frequently than they do but many times it is more convenient to use search engines, which I am guilty of.  The suggestion made by the author that teachers should require their students to use a certain amount of databases in research papers for their class is a great idea because that way, students will become more familiar and more comfortable with these library catalogs, and maybe want to use them more often, even when they don’t have to.

Reading Report #3

The articles, “Why the Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries” and “The ‘Library of the Future’ Begins to Emerge, both introduce valid but very different discussions.  While the article about libraries becoming the next pop-culture wave converses about bringing the library back and all the stereotypical thoughts concerning libraries and librarians, the other article talks about the future of libraries and how they are beginning to change, not only physically but rather more deeply than that, including their purpose in the world.  The first article is relatively humorous and critical, as the author attempts to show how libraries in a sense can be what we know as pop-culture.  She compares libraries to everything that people around the world know and love and uses examples such as the “Librarians Do Gaga” video to backup her point that today’s pop-culture is centered on quite silly subjects.  On a completely different note, the “library of the future” article was very informative, as it discussed several innovative ideas to entirely transform libraries from how we know them now.  As I would have imagined, in a few years from now, libraries will be much more virtual and digital, getting rid of many of the books that now fill the shelves.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading both of these articles, as they not only informed me of what to look out for in the upcoming years as far as the changes that will be taking place in libraries, but also made me realize the importance of libraries and how people should be more appreciative of them.  I found the article about pop-culture to be quite amusing, as I viewed a few of the videos that were links in the article.  Although this article was very entertaining, it really made me stop and ponder about the stories the world is concerned with, such as all of the cupcakes and cake television shows that the author mentioned in her article.  In my opinion, the way in which she delivered this story made me think twice about what stories I deem as important and I hope others will too.   The “Library of the Future” interested me because it related to many of the topics we have discussed in class about how we think libraries will have changed in a few years from now.  Our expectations were correct, as this article gives the reader a visual of our future library, containing things such as kiosks replacing information desks, food vendors, musical performances, and Wii stations.  These types of changes that will be taking place in the upcoming years will likely steer people away from their stereotypical thoughts of libraries and in fact be a great tool to draw more people in.