Education online: "Bit by bit, computers alter how we read"

[asteriskea]

<p>“I’m at the library”. My S is often at one of his university’s many and brilliantly stocked libraries but, as far as I can tell, the library for him is more of a quiet haven to study rather than a repository of research materials. “At Penn State University, literature professor Michael Berube said jokingly that thanks to the Internet, he’s had no reason to leave his desk since 2002.”</p>

<p>

Even as academics applaud what the Internet and digitization have done for research and classroom learning, some also express concern that it has changed the way students read.</p>

<p>With search engines able to scan millions of print sources for a single passage, a generation with an already short attention span is being encouraged to behave like literary “hunters,” snatching up nuggets for classroom credit without necessarily benefiting from the rhythm and the flow of the entire written work.</p>

<p>Often, say some professors, students are unable to distinguish between what’s credible and what’s bogus as information needed for an assignment piles onto their screens.</p>

<p>The very way online information is accessed – by jumping from one Web site to the next – does little to encourage linear thought as is used when reading a book…</p>

<p>Such concerns are heard most often across the humanities, where professors in book-centric disciplines must convince young adults raised on Google that wandering the library stacks, and looking beyond the first plausible answer to a question, are key elements of learning…

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07289/825800-298.stm[/url]”>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07289/825800-298.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[originaloog]

<p>University libraries have evolved over the years. Our son is taking two courses involving primarily group projects. He has been spending between 12-20 hrs/wk in the main library because it is centrally located, has a cafe, offers group study rooms that can be reserved and is an esthetically pleasing place with great views of the city(albeit Troy), an interior water sculpture, and of course high capacity wifi.</p>

<p>He is also doing an independent study this semester and ramping up to his senior thesis work, so the library is becoming a second home for him in his senior year. He mentioned that he prefers printed journal material vs dbase media. However as the OP article mentions, I assume that searching is always done on-line.</p>

[WashDad]

<p>

behave like literary “hunters,” snatching up nuggets for classroom credit without necessarily benefiting from the rhythm and the flow of the entire written work

</p>

<p>Yep, that’s exactly how I used to behave <em>cough</em> years ago when I was on deadline for a paper and needed some quotes and references for credibility. I just had to use books and their indexes instead of the Internet.</p>

[Marian]

<p>Since computers have altered the way we write – much for the better, I think – I am willing to live with the perhaps-less-desirable ways in which they have altered how we read.</p>

<p>I now get frustrated at books because they aren’t fully searchable.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>A lot of interesting work has been on the topic of the impact on IT on linear reading, research, and the future of archives (as well as archival research mehtods). Abstracts on topics such as “Web Access to the Original Archival Records - Challenging the Old Information Order?” and “The Politics and Ethics of Electronic Archiving” can be found at:</p>

<p>“The New Information Order and the Future of the Archive”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/abstracts.html#katherine.harris[/url]”>http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/abstracts.html#katherine.harris&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[asteriskea]

<p>Featured series on this subject in the Chronicle:</p>

<p>Young Librarians Look to the Future and Discuss the Future of Their Profession</p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2455[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2455&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/multimedia/?nav[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/multimedia/?nav&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[asteriskea]

<p>For researchers and those who just love books and libraries, real or digital, Princeton’s Anthony Grafton writes in the New Yorker on the present, past, and future of the medium:</p>

<p>Adventures in Wonderland:
<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/11/05/071105on_onlineonly_grafton[/url]”>Adventures in Wonderland | The New Yorker;

<p>Future Reading: Digitization and its discontents.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton[/url]”>Future Reading | The New Yorker;

[asteriskea]

<p>“Open Content Alliance triggers philosophical debate over access to digital material”</p>

<p>

In September, the Boston Library Consortium–a group of 19 research and academic libraries in New England that includes the Boston Public Library, University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Brown University–said it would reject Google’s effort and instead work with the OCA to digitize books among its members’ 34 million volumes whose copyrights have expired.</p>

<p>“You are talking about the fruits of our civilization and culture. You want to keep it open and certainly don’t want any company to enclose it,” said Doron Weber, program director of public understanding of science and technology for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.</p>

<p>The New York-based Sloan Foundation last year gave a $1 million grant to the Internet Archive, an OCA leader, to help pay for digital copies of collections owned by the Boston Public Library, the Getty Research Institute, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.</p>

<p>The works to be scanned with that grant include the personal library of John Adams, America’s second president, and thousands of images from the Metropolitan Museum.</p>

<p>The Boston Library Consortium deal represents a major coup for Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, a strident critic of the controls that Google has imposed on its book-scanning initiative…</p>

<p>Google’s restrictions stem in part from its decision to scan copyrighted material without explicit permission. Google wants to ensure that only small excerpts from the copyrighted material appear online–snippets the company believes fall under “fair use” protections of U.S. law…</p>

<p>In contrast, the OCA will not scan copyrighted content unless it receives the permission of the copyright owner. Most of the books the alliance has scanned so far are works whose copyrights have expired.

</p>

<p>[eSchool</a> News online - Google’s book scanning faces competition](<a href=“http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=7469]eSchool”>http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=7469)</p>

[originaloog]

<p>I tried reading one of Sir Walter Scott’s early novels on line, Marmion, and just couldn’t hack it. Maybe I just am a crochety senior, too set in my ways.</p>

<p>BTW, the web site for many on line works is:</p>

<p>[Authors</a> listed alphabetically: free web books, online](<a href=“http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/meta/authors.html#S]Authors”>http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/meta/authors.html#S)</p>

[tsdad]

<p>Hate to admit it but back in the day many of those books cited in my bibliographies and quoted only had their introductions read. Sorry.</p>

[soccerguy315]

<p>using computers doesn’t mean using websites…</p>

<p>I have access to hundreds (thousands, likely) of journals (any year, any issue) in whatever field I want from my dorm room. There’s no way to twist that to say it’s a negative.</p>