Are search engines making us stoopid?

While the Internet has made lives easier and faster since its advent in the mid-90s, some critics have raised concerns that online search engines may harm students' research ability.

According to a December 2005 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of college graduates able to interpret complex texts dropped by 9 percent between 1992 and 2003. A column printed in The New York Times last month attributed this decline to the popularity of Internet search engines.

Some UW information specialists, however, feel this diagnosis might simplify the issue.

The Internet is not causing the problem -- people just need to learn to use it more effectively, said John Holmes, a reference librarian and media selector at Odegaard Undergraduate Library.

"The Internet is a tool," Holmes said. "If it's not an appropriate tool for a specific task, professors should be teaching that."

Concluding that students no longer know how to research correctly because of the Internet is a generalization, said Nancy Huling, head of reference and research services at Suzzallo and Allen Libraries.

"I don't know that student behavior has changed that much," she said. "We still work with a lot of students who take their research very seriously."

Students come into the university with very little or basic research experience and expect to learn more advanced technique, Holmes said.

"The whole idea of finding appropriate sources, using them appropriately and working that into a paper -- those are sophisticated tasks," he said.

Libraries have always had tons of resources for students to use, Huling said.

"Students today don't avail themselves of those resources any less than student 20 years ago," she said. "I don't know that times have changed as much as we think just because of the Internet."

Huling, who became a librarian before the advent of computers, said having the Internet is wonderful because of what it can help find.

"Thirty years ago you were so limited," she said.

Now, since students spend so much time on computers and are short on time in general, they need to be taught how to sort through the information on their computer screen.

"The issue with the general Internet searching is that you're confronted with a large amount of information," she said. "[It's] very diverse information that hasn't been sifted by anyone."

Much of the time, documents cannot be accessed without a subscription, Huling said.

"The best resources for a topic are not going to be available through a free Internet search," she said. "So much research is just not free --somebody has to pay for it."

What many don't realize is that the library pays these subscriptions on the students' behalf.

"We provide access to journal articles and other things behind a subscription," Huling said. "Our databases and journals and electronic books are available through the Internet if you are a UW student."

These accessible-at-home databases are ideal for students because of their busy lives, she said.

"There are journals, books, newspapers, microfilm, archival collections, sound and video," said Joe Janes, associate dean for academics at the Information School. "There are incredible resources in that library."

Since the sheer number of resources available in the libraries may overwhelm students, instructors are responsible for helping students learn, Janes said.

"Faculty should think really hard about the kinds of assignments they give and how students are going to do them," he said. "[They should] consider what kinds of sources to accept or not -- if the sites aren't attributed, give it a bad grade."

Faculty members need to decide how they want their students to engage with the material they're studying, he said.

"Design assignments that require students to go father and work harder and look more broadly," Janes said. "Engage with the people whose job it is to think about information all the time."

In the same way, students are responsible for demanding research as a part of the curriculum.

"Students deserve better than that and should demand it," he said. "When you're in a better position to find information, you're in a better position for your whole life."

Reach Daily reporter Sarah Jeglum at [url='mailto:sarahjeglum@thedaily.washington.edu']sarahjeglum@thedaily.washington.edu[/url].