Are we fighting a losing battle?

To begin, I love real live paper books. They are nice to hold and to flip through, easy on the eyes, easy to share and manage. All of this is important.

However, I also think it is a bit closed minded to consider the question of print or electronic resources to be a battle. At the moment, there is a key distinction between anything print and anything digital, namely around access. Until access to digital versions of all out print texts becomes as easy, as pleasant, and as available to everyone in all circumstances, print will always differ completely from digital. However, once we get there, an ebook and a print book will be exactly the same resource, just like hard cover and paperback. They will need librarians to manage them, too, remember, and libraries to hold them, even if they look a little different.

The difference to consider, then, is between:

Static resources - print and ebooks; peer-edited, (usually) reliable, purposefully structured but not quite current and not interactive

Fluid resources - websites, databases, wikipedia; constantly updated, interactive, cross-linked, but not necessarily subject to academic rigour (although not impossible), and with a differently designed, less controlled structure.

Each of these types have different purposes and uses in research and question answering, but whether the words are printed on a screen or a piece of paper is not the issue.

Until our user interfaces become as intuitive and print books, and everyone has as easy access to digital versions as print versions, the dynamic between print and digital is an issue. Right now, print resources can come back to a student’s desk, be carried home, and be browsed intuitively. By contrast, digital resources stay where the computer is, and students rarely can access them as easily as print. Also, each print resource can be used by a different student at once, can be shared and traded easily. Meanwhile, only the number of students as have workstations can get at digital materials. Print resources can automatically be given a certain amount of authority, as being checked and reviewed is inherent in the way they are produced. All these are important considerations, but it is very possible that technology will catch up with all of these.

I’m not saying that I think digital resources are better and we should abandon print books, but I do think that before too terribly long, there won’t be any difference.

Biases regarding reference formats

I think we all have a bias when it comes to the electronic vs print question. For myself, I think that I equally value both electronic and print. They both have a place, and should both be used. When I’m teaching, I don’t mind which they use. This, however, doesn’t mean I don’t have biases about it. I come from the generation of internet research, and of Wikipedia, and my bias is very strong there.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that I think Wikipedia is great. Is it always reliable? No, but neither are many other online sources (for the same reason), and neither are many print sources (because knowledge changes and they don’t). If evaluating information is a key part of information literacy, then surely teachers’ and librarians’ insistence on No Wikipedia! is poor information literacy? We should be reading everything critically, not automatically trusting or distrusting sources. Also, I’ve never come across a crass error. Missing or unclear technical details do occur, but at the elementary level, how much technical detail do we need? The writing is sometimes unclear, but again, let’s assess on a case by case basis. In terms of question-answering reference sources, it is fast, usually accurate, well laid-out, extensively cross-referenced, and easy to navigate. It is a great place to look up definitions, or to gather basic information about a topic. We of course need to check with other sources as well if it is formal research and not just a casual query, but shouldn’t that always be true? Surely the requirement for a permitted reference source isn’t “perfect”.

I am a teacher, and I like Wikipedia. No embarrassed reservations, explanations, or excuses.