A recent article in the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology looks at teens today and their relationship to virtual environments and information literacy. The article focuses on how today's digital natives (those born after 1989) are more likely to use cellphones, text messaging, social networking and other information and communication technologies (ICT) as their primary mode of communication. While many born before 1989 are just as "plugged in," these natives live in a digital world. They use the internet to do everything from online shopping and downloading music to locating news and health information. Despite their tech savvy, however, research has shown that these young people are more likely to be information illiterate. That is, when they enter higher education, they lack basic skills of information seeking, retrieval and evaluation. (Beheshti, 2012)
For a library school student preparing to enter a dubious job market, this comes as good news.
The skills that I am currently gaining in knowing what information to search for, as well as how to judge the relevance and appropriateness of said information will come in handy when these "digital natives" reach college. While many argue that the information available on the WWW will eventually render libraries and librarians obsolete, this article and related research seem to suggest otherwise. While there is a seemingly endless amount of information now at our fingertips, it's not useful if one doesn't know what to do with it or how to process it.
Librarians to the rescue!
Reference
Beheshti, J. (2012). Teens, virtual environments and information literacy. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 38(3), 54-57. doi: 10.1002/bult.2012.1720380313
I think this is an important fact that not only future librarians should consider but current librarians as well. Nowadays, everyone is "plugged in." Information seeking has changed greatly. Everything can be found with just the click of mouse. On that note librarians' roles may not have changed as much as some might think. They still have to sort through the web of information to find credible sources for patron's needs.
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