The wonderful world of Wiki

If only I were so eloquent:

And this is why digital literacy is so crucial for educational institutions: we do a fundamental disservice to our students if we continue to propagate old methods of knowledge creation and archivization without also teaching them how these structures are changing, and, more importantly, how they will relate to knowledge creation and dissemination in a fundamentally different way. No longer is an encyclopedia a static collection of facts and figures (although some of its features might be relatively so); it is an organic entity. To educational and policy institutions which, for a substantial portion of history, have maintained control over static codex centered archives—think not only academic libraries, but national ones as well—the shift to an organic structure which they no longer control or solely influence represents a crisis indeed. But to train students in old literacy seems to me to be fundamentally the wrong approach. --David Parry in Wikipedia and the New Curriculum Digital Literacy Is Knowing How We Store What We Know

As a librarian who has the opportunity to teach college students "information literacy" skills in classroom and one on one settings I am constantly forced into a real life awareness of the changing types and retrieval styles of today's learners. How well am I preparing the undergraduate with whom I have contact for life and further academic endeavors if I do not recognize these changes? What I appreciate so much about Professor Parry's opinion is a recognition of and respect for this changing culture.

In regards to his comments, what I get excited about is my opportunity to help students learn and navigate these changing avenues of information dissemination more confidently and more critically. The hard part of the whole endeavor, however, is finding the wise balance between acknowledging these new opportunities available for information creation and dissemination while at the same time conveying an clear and academically necessary need for restraint. I have no answers, only the commitment to continually evaluate where I am as a librarian and aid to our students.