Time management. But they are wrong. The ProQuest study says this, however, because:

When study participants were asked to identify which resource they preferred for academic research and course assignments, they overwhelmingly preferred library databases. However, students will opt for Google if they have difficulty navigating the library’s e-resources Web page, if they’re faced with multiple obscure links or “how-to guides,” or if they’re not aware of the library databases that pertain to their particular need.

Seems to me that the issue is not so much time management as a lack of information competency. Everyone thinks they are an expert searcher, and so of course they will indicate when asked that their biggest obstacle is just time rather than efficiency. “If only I had more time to look for articles.” If only students saw the need for further training in identifying, locating, and accessing articles thereby mining more time to digest and write.

The very end of the press release concerning this study gives some indication that my assessment may indeed be a bit closer to the mark:

Results of the ProQuest study have inspired toolkits specifically designed to help academic and public libraries better market their online resources, become more attuned to patron concerns and develop outreach strategies to assist their patrons throughout the research process

If time management were the issue, why not just distribute copies of David Allen’s Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity to students rather than assisting libraries in marketing their training opportunities? Either way the study hardly appears to be all that revolutionary. You mean college students struggle with time management and information competency? Who knew? Students use Google? Really?

Popularity: 16% [?]

Let me start with a quote from Hugh Hewitt’s Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World:

What made it all possible? What gave Luther the ability to succeed in his reform where others had failed? What allowed Calvin to shape the thought of every generation that followed him? Print. In 1449 Gutenberg amplified the human voice such that it could be heard around the world. He provided the means by which one person could communicate with the masses without the interference of the institutional structures of the day. At last individuals could speak, and none could silence them.

For the Mainstream Media, it is 1449 and 1517, at the same moment. (p.59)

Hewitt’s point is that we have embarked upon the next wave of transformation in the dissemination of information, and like the Reformations of the Sixteenth Century, this transformation provides a broader voice.

What, then, does this mean for libraries? If we are tasked with not only provision of access to information but also the preservation of that information, what are we to do with this new form? Clearly, anybody who can get online can read a blog. But if blogs are the new media, then what of their preservation? Whose, how often, and in what form should blogs be archived? And who should be tasked with it? In a hundred years will today’s blogs be accessible like the preserved media of a hundred years ago?

My second question concerns the cultural and societal change which is being sparked by this change in media. William Sonn in his Paradigms Lost: The Life and Deaths of the Printed Word argues that with each major historical shift in the manner and method of information dissemination there has been a consequent, and often quite significant, change in society. To quote him:

For every time the way media were produced changed in the past, politics shifted. So did economics. Migrations and emigrations followed; even mating habits changed sometimes. It is hard to trace how one particular tool–the telegraph, the radio, a device that made printing cheaper–directly led to one particular change; but all hell seemed to break loose when a new communications device superseded an old one, or even when the nitty-gritty manufacture and distribution of old media changed. (p. 7)

So where, then, are we going? And who will record the journey?

Popularity: 15% [?]

This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or Mr. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.

Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down through the ages, and all its hidden implications have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books.

C. S. Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books,” as reprinted in Richard Gamble’s The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What it Means to be an Educated Human Being (Wilmington, De.: ISI Books, 2007) 597. This book just crossed my desk and I am loving it. It contains excerpts from Plato to the Reformers to Dorothy Sayers.

Popularity: 11% [?]

A relatively recent study entitled Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester (.PDF) has the following to say concerning the Google generation and their approach to reference services at an academic library:

So self-service is the preeminent model and strategy of the information-seeking student. But when the student cannot satisfy his/her own needs and turns to real-life service providers, what happens? In their drawings of ideal library spaces, students sometimes group librarians with technical support staff and baristas at service desks (see Chapter 4). When they do not differentiate between different kinds of service providers, it is in part because they do not know the service providers, having experienced few person-to-person service relationships. If they have a need, they want it filled. If they want a need filled, they want to go to a font of all sorts of service, a sort of universal service point, a physical Google. In other words, they want Mommy. (p. 76)

HT: Nicole Engard, Metadata Librarian at Princeton University

Popularity: 10% [?]

In a 1972 book, John Stott wrote of “escape routes by which we avoid our God-given responsibility to use our minds responsibly.” He cites ritualism, radical social action, and an emphasis on experience as examples prevalent in particular denominations. See John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters (London: IVP, 1972) 10.

Henry Blamires in his classic book, The Christian Mind, didn’t bother beating around the bush quite so timidly. He wrote (45 years ago!):

The Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth-century Church. One cannot characterize it without having recourse to language which will sound hysterical and melodramatic. Ther is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality. . . . but as a thinking being, the modern Christian has sucumbed to secularization. — (1962, p.42)

Have things improved? Or have we continued to slide down hill? If so, is there even, as Blamires said, “a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality” that is objectively recognizable anymore?

Ouch.

Popularity: 6% [?]

In Anthony Kronman‘s Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 35, he asks:

In what sense, and in what way, can the question of what living is for be made an appropriate and useful subject of academic instruction? today, in most of our colleges and universities, it is not, in fact, a subject of organized study, and one might infer from what I have said that this is because th question by its very nature precludes it — that it is too personal to be studied in this way. But the question of life’s meaning has not always been neglected as it now is. Once upon a time, and not all that long ago, many college and university teachers, especially in the humanities, believed they had a responsibility to lead their students in an organized examination of this question and felt confident in their authority to do so. They recognized that each student’s answer must be his or her own but believed that a disciplined survey of the answers the great writers and artists of the past have given to it can be a helpful aid to students in their own personal encounter with the question of what living is for–indeed, an indispensable aid, without which they must face the question not only alone but in disarray.

The consideration of life’s chief end and purpose has not only left the academy in its abandonment of an education in the classical disciplines, but it has also left the home in too many cases as well. Of course, the chief end and purpose of life can only be discerned in any definitive sense as we understand our place before the Creator, as the Westminster Catechism so famously stated. If “the answers the great writers and artists of the past” do indeed have something to contribute, as indeed they certainly do, perhaps we should begin here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

“My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.

Spoken by Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four in his explanation to Watson for why he indulges his cocaine addiction. Does this say anything for my affinity for a good strong cup of coffee? [I ask that in jest -- please don't condemn my coffee.]

I can sympathize with his need for intellectual stimulation (can you imagine a vacation without a good mystery novel?), and have embraced for many years now a plan for broad reading in theology, history, etc., but I can’t help wondering at what point our attempts at solving mysteries for the sake of intellectual stimulation lead us to “solve” theological mysteries that may be best left to a reflective marveling.

Don’t misunderstand. We ought to probe the depths of the mind of God revealed in Scripture. But we ought not to revel in the novelty of freshly “solved” theological mysteries. Solving historical mysteries — great fun. “Solving” theological mysteries — dangerous ground. Good theology, John Piper once said, is so often just a hair’s breadth from heresy. I just don’t think I’m smart enough to blaze those trails. At least not without a good strong cup of coffee.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I never really aspired to librarianship as a child (who does?) probably because of perceptions such as these. Just for kicks I did a Google Books search on the phrase “librarians are like” and here are a few of the results. I actually found this somewhat discouraging — most of these statements were in library journals and indicate that we have something of an inferiority complex. If only the world understood us.

• Most male librarians are like bulls in a china shop when it comes to the task of making a library look right. If local female talent isn’t available, … [Planning the College and University Library Building: A Book for Campus Planners and Architects - Page 93; by Ralph E. Ellsworth - 1960 - 102 pages;]
• But I forget myself; we librarians are like Kentucky whiskey—some are better than others, but there are no bad ones! … [Library Essays: Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries - Page 239; by Arthur Elmore Bostwick - 1920 - 432 pages;]
• I believe librarians are like the unconquerable Chinese… [Illinois Libraries - Page 728; by Illinois State Library, Illinois Library Extension Commission, Illinois Library Association, Illinois State Library Library Extension Division - 1919;]
• “Librarians are like pre-war Army quarter-masters, .. [Whigmaleeries - Page 4; by Scottish School of Librarianship - 1962;]
• But first, we must get rid of some out-of-date ideas on what librarians are like: dry-as-dust, bluestockings, martinets, dragons even! … [The Assistant Librarian: Official Journal of the A.A.L. - Page 41; by Association of Assistant Librarians - 1997;]
• children’s librarians are like the cigarette smokers in the TV commercial in this … [The Reading Teacher - Page 179; by International Reading Association - 1951;]
• Librarians are like midwives. [Wisconsin Library Bulletin - Page 387; by Wisconsin. Free Library Commission, Wisconsin. Division for Library Services - 1984;]
• Librarians are like artists: the good ones, given time, develop individual styles that are recognizable. [Making Sure We Are True to Our Founders: The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 1970-95 - Page 332; by Jeffrey Brandon Morris - Law - 1997.]
• A library is like a church, and we, the librarians are like priests and ministers… [RQ. - Page 28; by American Library Association Reference Services Division - 1960;]
• Librarians are like scientists in this respect: it is never safe to ask them questions about anything outside of their show-case. [The Bookman - Page 506 - 1912;]
• Reference librarians are like tourist guides in foreign countries. [This Business of Writing - Page 182; by Gregg Levoy - Language Arts & Disciplines - 1992 - 219 pages;]
• Instructional librarians are like combat nurses, often ignored until needed, but deeply appreciated when they materialize at the right place at the right time. [Training College Students in Information Literacy, 2006-07 - Page 11; by Primary Research Group - Computers - 2006 - 73 pages;]
• Librarians are like local politicians —they enhance their position by taking the best deal offered. [Publishers Weekly - Page 2608; by Publishers' Board of Trade (U.S.), Book Trade Association of Philadelphia, American Book Trade Union, Am. Book Trade Association, R.R. Bowker Company - 1873;]
• Librarians are like people in one respect at least. [The Catholic Library World - Page 68; by Catholic Library Association - 1929;]
• Librarians are like mothers. [The Educational Review - Page 235;]
• Librarians are like fishers in the sea. [The Library Quarterly - Page 220; by University of Chicago Graduate Library School - 1931;]
• We librarians are like the rest of the world. [Rice University Studies - Page 40; by Rice University - 1962;]
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher has said that librarians are like missionaries in their
  zeal. We have to be. We are an integral part in the shaping of mankind and … [Bulletin of the American Library Association - Page 886; by American Library Association - 1938;]

I can’t believe I’m one of them. God must indeed have a sense of humor since I am now, and love being, one of them. Though I must endure the stereotypes, I do get to invest in theology students preparing for ministry by teaching them how to do substantive research. I guess I can endure being compared to a “dry-as-dust, bluestockings, martinet.”

Popularity: 14% [?]

A BBC News website poll which asks readers to identify ten classic English novels based on their first lines is more difficult than you might think. Their website explains:

Leading literary firms failed to recognise the work of Jane Austen when it was sent in by a prankster. The opening chapters of three novels were submitted under an invented name, with titles and character names changed. Think you can do better? Try our opening line quiz.

Take the BBC poll and try from yourself. I scored a 6 out of 10. Perhaps this previous poll was wrong.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Well, on this point at least. His Politics and the English Language argues that slovenliness of language promotes foolish thoughts, and political language in particular has contributed greatly to the decline of clear expression. I think he was right. Words are chosen less and less today for the sake of their meaning.

He writes:

A man my take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided… If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous…

Did I mention he wrote this in 1946?

My apologies to whomever referred me to this piece. I would gladly provide a link if only I could remember where I saw it. Was it you?

Popularity: 11% [?]