When Knowledge Was Scarce and Precious

     I work in a relatively high-tech field. In my library, electronic resources are the name of the game. My students and I have access to millions of individual resources on virtually every topic in our set of deep-web databases, and that's not even taking into account the open web, which has billions of pages (of varying degrees of veracity, of course) on any topic including some that you don't want to know even exist. Our job is to provide access to this information, wrangle it, and help students use and make sense of it. I am grateful for this wealth of information. It is a truly wonderful thing if used in consultation with a qualified guide (i.e. a librarian).  Lately, however, I have been feeling that we have lost something important about ourselves in this overwhelming wash of information.


     In the 70s and 80s, which encompassed the formative years of my childhood, information had an element of scarcity. If you needed the answer to a question, you couldn't just take a device out of your pocket and magically have the answer. Some effort was required. Printed materials had to be tracked down and consulted. Once you found the nugget of information, you could be relatively confident of two things: It was a precious accomplishment, and it was likely to be good (true, accurate) information. The scarcity of the knowledge, the selectivity of knowledge producers, and the effort required to get it made it a wonderful thing.


     I am lucky to have grown up in a home with an encyclopedia (I just assumed everyone had one). My parents even subscribed to the annual updates for a while. I spent many happy hours keeping boredom at bay by browsing it volume by random volume. It was not, however, an exhaustive source of information. There was a great deal that was not available so I had to put my shoes on and head to the library down the street from my school (or maybe the one IN my school- remember those?) I really remember fondly tracking down sources in print or microform, with that all-important call number-bearing slip of paper in hand, I have a habit of relentlessly pursuing a needed tidbit of information, even learning new systems in order to do it (a colleague calls me "Miss Marple" for my ability to identify and solve problems in some of our computer systems).  Now, of course, with most information, an answer is as close as that smartphone in your pocket.


     The problem, of course, with instant access to that avalanche of information, is  that a lot of it is just terrible- wrong, slanted, poorly explained or presented, etc.  The bigger problem is that anything that pops up is OK with most people. There's a concept in survey research called "satisficing," that is, giving an answer that is probably good enough but not optimal. Satisficing also works in reverse, A lot of us pick the first bit of information that seems to fit (or is "good enough") rather than taking the effort to find the best bit of information. In an era of information satisficing, information is cheapened to the point that it is basically worthless. It's sad, really.


     Another problem with the cheapening of information is that most of us never get past the second step on the hierarchy which his usually defined as data, information, knowledge, and wisdom.  To simplify it greatly, think of a car. If you see a bunch of parts lying around, that is data- the little bits that might be useful, but without some sort of schema for interpreting them (like a Chilton's manual?) You have no idea what their meaning could be. When these bits are put together  through the appropriate schema, we have information. You can see it is a car and you know what a car is. Next, you can learn and understand the information. You know how to drive a car. This is knowledge.  If you can internalize, interpret, evaluate, and use this knowledge, you have wisdom. You know why it is important to drive carefully, and you intend to do so. If you are satisficing in the great shallow sea of information, you get data arranged in a schema (usually a language with most web information), and if you understand the output of the schema (i.e. English, Spanish, etc.) you have information. But we usually don't get past that point. We get no real knowledge out of it ( seeing and "liking" Kim K's newest revealing dress is not knowledge), let alone wisdom which is in very short supply these days.


     Without knowledge and wisdom we are left with a dumbed-down populace, intellectually strangled by the abundance of information instead of being lifted up by it. There is value in scarcity, but it is up to people like me to try to preserve that value in the face of an unfortunate abundance.
    

Two Learning Technologies Compared

GALILEO Scholar (Georgia Library Learning Online)

GALILEO  is an aggregator of academic databases for college students with a discovery tool (similar to a federated search, if that means anything to anyone here) that provides for retrieval of resources for student use. Try it above. In order to get the full functionality you must be a student in a Georgia institution, but you should get a good idea of how it works by using the above widget. The “goal” of GALILEO is to provide information and facilitate the finding of specific information. Many of the database products in GALILEO have other learning features such as citation generators, etc.

GALILEO does not overtly “teach” a particular skill, but it assists in the learning process by providing access to resources and supporting information. The primary technology involved in teaching students to use GALILEO is called a librarian.  What can users learn from GALILEO? Well, aside from just retrieving articles, GALILEO can assist students in getting an overview of a topic, finding a search vocabulary, and creating a search strategy.  GALILEO is, in a way, both content and procedure- it contains the content (articles and other resources) and provides the procedure (discovery tool, search vocabulary, and search construction) for most efficiently accessing the content. It is most definitely a constructionist technology. With every search you conduct and search strategy you create, you are learning how search engines work and gaining the skills to search better. I guess you could say it’s open-ended because while the specific goal is finding and using information, the type of information for which the student can search is infinite in its possibilities.

Card Catalogs

An earlier technology that is somewhat analogous to GALILEO (hey, paper is a technology, right?) is the old library catalog, contained in massive wooden cabinets full of 3x5 cards. I would also include microfiche catalogs in this category because the worked in exactly the same fashion. They just took up less space. Unlike GALILEO, the card catalog required a pretty hefty knowledge of controlled vocabulary to use. Although its intended audience was the average library user, it inherently required the hand-holding of a librarian to use effectively at all. Instead of using keywords that could search the entire document citation or full text, library catalogs had limited entry points.  If you looked for information on feline diseases, for instance, you first had to find out whether they were going to be listed under “felines” or “cats” in the catalog. Maybe there was a “see also” card under “felines” referring you to the correct subject heading, “cats” but maybe there wasn’t. Searches could potentially end quite early with no satisfactory result.  Learning about search strategy construction by performing repeat searches was nearly impossible because the search vocabulary (and the number of access points) was so limited.  Often a librarian had to be consulted just to find the proper subject heading.

With GALILEO, librarians are able to actively involve students in the search for information and really hone a student’s ability to seek, find and use information in a way the card catalog just couldn’t. In this way it is also more playful than the card catalog. I tell students all the time to just play with it. Experiment with search terms and strategies.  I went to library school because of GALILEO and technologies like it so I will have to say that the reason I find it engaging, thought provoking, motivating, whatever, is the power that it puts in my hands to find good, authoritative, useful information on virtually any topic.