On New Year’s Day, The New York Times published an article entitled “Indian Soybean Farmers Join the Global Village.”2 That article describes how and why Ravi Sham Choudhry accesses the World Wide Web to assist the people of his village to price their soybeans, by checking Chicago futures prices. In pragmatic terms, the work of Ravi Sham Choudhry illustrates the value of information fluency. By understanding the value of information and by developing the skills necessary to access information pertinent to his life, he improves the economy of his village and region.
In another example in Osiengle, in northeastern Cambodia: “Without wires for electricity or telephones, this village of about 800 people has nevertheless joined the online world, taking part in a development project set up by an American benefactor to connect 13 rural schools to the Internet.”3
Since deployment last September at a new school, solar panels have powered three computers. Each day, an “Internet Motoman” slowly rides a motorcycle by the elementary school. On the passenger seat is a wireless access point. It allows the exchange of e-mail between the box and computers. “Briefly, this schoolyard of tree stumps and a hand-cranked water well becomes an Internet hot spot. … At dusk, the motorcycles converge on the provincial capital, Ban Lung, where an advanced school is equipped with a satellite dish, allowing a bulk e-mail exchange with the outside world. … In Phnom Penh, dozens of Internet cafes offer access for 50 cents an hour, and 20 stores sell used computers imported from Japan. About 1,000 Netizens a day log on to the Web site of King Norodom Sihanouk, www.norodomsihanouk.info. A used desktop computer can be bought for about $30 – the monthly wage for a schoolteacher – while used laptops can be had for as little as $50.”4
Throughout the world, modern information technology has begun to change the way we identify, locate, and retrieve information. These changes will transform our world, making information fluency even more important for all.
By enhancing our students’ information fluency, we empower them both in the academic world and their every day life. As noted in the previous articles, information fluency includes a number of different aspects of information: tools, resources, publishing, technology, and critical thinking5. As we teach information fluency, our individual experience and study shapes our knowledge of each of these aspects and thus what we teach and expect of our students.
I ask that you constantly challenge your own view of the constantly changing world of information: How complete is my view of information? What has changed in the way I approach information since the days when I was a student? Do I use the same information skills in my discipline as I do when contemplating the purchase of an automobile. How are my information practices different; how are they similar? For example, if you are a historian describing in class the evaluation and analysis of original sources, consider how your critical process may or may not parallel the young mother evaluating information about infant care.
The need to understand information processes is ubiquitous in today’s life. Understanding how information is created, evaluated, distributed, organized, stored, and retrieved is essential to us all in all of our roles-citizen, academic, neighbor, student, consumer, and life partner.
As a librarian, I value dictionaries, encyclopedias, research monographs, and journals, whether they are available in paper or electronically, but they are only part of the information world. Equally important to me are the conversations with colleagues as I walk across the campus and the discussions with neighbors in the driveway of my house.
Perhaps most important to me, is that I never assume accuracy and completeness in any source, whether it is a journal article or my neighbor. My responsibility always includes evaluating the source and the content provided.
No other lesson has been so difficult for me. I want to believe my neighbor, the journal article, the Weblog found through Google, as well as the newscaster. I must not, without evaluating the information critically.
Part of my difficulty is my desire to trust. Perhaps more importantly I often forget that information sources, whether people or publications, exist within social structures with radically different values and “logical” systems.
More than any other aspect of information in every day life, we need to teach a skeptical approach to information. We have almost all learned this lesson, but only partially. We must teach our students to approach information, and the sources that convey it, with questions rather than unquestioning acceptance. No technological skill, no knowledge of books, no data gathering methodology transcends this lesson.
Source: “Information Fluency in Everyday Life” an article by Dr. James Benson, Chief Infomration Officier and Dean of Universitiy Libraries. It appeared in the News letter of the Center for Teaching and Learning at St. John.s University
Tags: digital divide
