Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands! - Big Brain from Futurama, "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"

Do you remember the very first major research paper you had assigned in college or university? I had to look up so many books and journals in order to complete my lengthy psychology paper. It was tedious and strenuous and I hated doing it. Main Library at UBC scared me (it was like those creepy libraries where students go in, but not out like in any cheesy college horror film), but I still went there because I had to get my work done. I do know that even though I hated doing it, it was something I could do on my own. I didn’t have to rely on any one to help me to find the references I needed. I suppose I have my grade school teacher-librarians to thank for that.

Students are slowly losing their abilities to use reference books. They don’t think about using the index before delving into an encyclopedia or any other collected works. Instead, they do it all the hard way and look directly into the books for what they might hopefully luck out on coming across the information they need. This is the same for student use of table of contents and indexes in basic non-fiction books. On top of that, some students are struggling with finding books with different online catalogue systems and finding the books on the shelf. Yes, it is sad that some high school students can find a book on the shelf using the Dewey decimal system. Even if they aren’t the greatest at math, they should at least be able to find a book up to the first decimal place. These are all skills that need to be practiced and maintained. “Just like reading more improves reading and comprehension skills, using information-literacy skills more often improves that lifelong skill too” (Abram, 2005, p.21)

I hate to say it, but students are using the Internet way too much and are losing the art of using print materials. We, as teachers, have become lax on requiring students to use books in the library to get a variety of sources for projects. We cannot just show the students a few times in their public school lives and think they can be adept at this. We have to have them practice these skills just as we did as children so that we can be confident that when these students go off to university that they can do this on their own.


Works Cited:

Abram, S. (2005). The top five priorities for school libraries and their districts. Multimedia & Internet@school, January/February, 19-20.