Information literacy is an important concept to be able to grasp, especially now in my college career. I need to learn how to filter all of the information that comes my way and know how what to do with each piece. The library here on the Siena campus has created a very good online catalog of all the information you can have access to. They have organized it in a way to help with this idea of information literacy. This is a hard task though, because with innovations in technology, our world of obtaining information is constantly changing. Technology, as Sean Conley said during the presentation, is both a blessing and a curse.
The concept of information literacy has constantly been changing to keep up with the changes in technology. Years ago, the card catalog existed. All the books, magazines, newspapers...everything that the library had, was put onto a card and stored in a big drawer-type case. This was known as the card catalog. You would go to this to search for what you needed to find in the library. Card catalogs were very inefficient because you had to manually find a book that fit all of your keywords. The example in class was "albany history." You might find a card with a book on "albany" and a separate one with the keyword "history," but it was then your job to manually find a book that satisfied both words. Eventually this evolved into the use of CD-roms. Libraries would keep all of their information about their books on these CD-roms. If other libraries were looking for a book in a place other than their own library, they could just give the libraries a CD-rom of their information. Although this was a jump from the card catalog, this still proved to be very inefficient and timely. In the beginning of the 1990s, the Internet surfaced and proved to be revolutionary. This allowed rapid communication to take place between libraries and shifted the types of resources available. The online catalog was started and is now the best and most efficient way to access available materials. This is where libraries store all of the information on their books, magazines, ect. People can sort through this catalog with ease and find what they need.
With the creation of the online catalog for libraries that the Internet has made possible, there are other aspects of this that have many advantages. Connect NY was created and is used by 11 colleges throughout New York. This is helpful when searching for library books. If the library you are at does not carry the book you are looking for, you can try to find it in Connect NY. This book is then brought to your library within two to three days. This has allowed libraries to share books between one another, which has saved money in the long run. For a college student writing a research paper, this network can come in handy.
Although there is plenty of "blessings" with these innovations of technology, there are some "curses" that have seeped through. Librarians used to play a role as the keeper of all the information and could filter the good and bad. Now, through the invention of the Internet, everyone who is capable of using the Internet has access to this information. It is no longer filtered through these "librarian" figures, which can make research very difficult. Also, with keyword searching, the computer has not become smart enough to filter useless information and keep only the useful information. For example, when "albany history" is typed into the computer, it comes up with everything that has those words, whether together or separate. The computer doesn't get that it needs to keep the two words together.
Through the innovations of technology, the idea of information literacy has evolved. Now, I believe a useful definition is being able to filter the information you receive, reading it as good or bad, and being able to get rid of it if you do not need it. Looking past the good and bad of information literacy, this is a concept we will continually need to get used to using for the rest of our lives, or at least careers.
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