Chat Room: What America Needs to Know

Any librarian who watches kids run straight for Google when they're assigned a research project—or teachers and other adults who make the same mistake—knows that most people adhere to the equation "Information = The Internet." This is sadly evident in the results of a recent three-year survey of 2,000 American households conducted by researchers at UCLA's Center for Communication Policy.

The study found that in 2002, 52.8 percent of Internet users believed that online information was "reliable and accurate." It's little comfort to know that this statistic was down from the previous year: in 2001, a whopping 58 percent believed the Net was reliable. If anyone in America's education system needs documentation to support the need for information literacy training in K–12 schools, these numbers alone will do the trick.

Interestingly, almost 40 percent of those surveyed in 2002 thought that only about half of what they read on the Internet was accurate. But the study failed to reveal why these skeptical souls felt that way or how they knew it. Had they simply been burned by incorrect information they'd found online, heard about someone else who had, or taken a class in how to find the highest quality online information? The chances are slim that it's the latter.

Instead, the primary goal of the UCLA study was to gauge how much the Internet had replaced television in the respondents' lives. The researchers did not ask whether, or where, respondents had learned how to evaluate the information they found online.

It's time for librarians to make more noise about how little Americans know about the quality of what they find on the Net, how we make it our business to guide them to quality information by making databases and lists of Web sites available to them, both in the library and wherever they conduct their searches.

I can't tell you how many times I've watched adults learn that their state library, public library, or school library makes databases and reference works available for free. "Wow!" they almost always say. "I had no idea this was here!" Don't you wish there was some way to better publicize all the guidance that librarians provide?

When the UCLA study was released in February 2003, the results received media attention in hundreds of newspapers and Web services worldwide. So to all the big-name researchers, library school students, and education organizations out there, I would like to propose a study that would demonstrate how much America needs information literacy training. Here's what I'd like to call 2,000 households and ask:

1. When you have a thorny question to answer, and you're looking for information, where do you go first?
2. When you go online to answer a question, what site do you visit first?
3. Have you ever heard of any of the following: EBSCOhost, ProQuest, the Gale Student Research Center, and SIRS Discoverer? What are they? Do you know where to find them?
4. Which of the following is more likely to provide accurate information: Google, Yahoo, or one of the databases above?
5. Would you use an online database that isn't a Web site, but contains free archived magazine articles, books, and reference materials?
6. How often do you call or visit your library to answer a question?
7. Have you ever visited your library's Web site?
8. If so, why did you go there? How often do you log on?
9. Have you ever heard the term "information literacy"? If so, do you know what it means?
10. Have you ever taken a class, or had any training, in how to evaluate Web sites and other information you find online for reliability and accuracy?

I'm willing to bet this survey would demonstrate how little the public knows about how to find accurate information. It's likely that only a small percentage of Americans know that there are great databases available for free. It's time for librarians to shout to those who don't, "You need a guide, and that's us."