Marylaine Block, Information Literacy: Food for Thought, January 13, 2006. Good teaching exercises for students who "believe everything they need to know is available for free with a simple Google search -- and, if they don't find it there, that it doesn't exist at all."
Comment. I wholeheartedly endorse these teaching exercises. But I have a two-sided response to the belief that if it isn't online [or free online], then it doesn't exist [or isn't worth reading]. On the one hand, on most topics today it's wishful thinking and may remain so for a long time. Don't let students indulge in it and don't fail to teach them what else exists and how to find it. On the other, we should work on making this belief true tomorrow, not just criticize it for being false today. Don't expect students to overlook the spectacular convenience of free online access to scholarship and information. For research authors as well as research readers, it's better to move peer-reviewed research literature into this basket than to keep blaming students for looking first in the basket closest to them.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/13/2006 07:57:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
