<p>"I'm at the library". My S is often at one of his university's many and brilliantly stocked libraries but, as far as I can tell, the library for him is more of a quiet haven to study rather than a repository of research materials. "At Penn State University, literature professor Michael Berube said jokingly that thanks to the Internet, he's had no reason to leave his desk since 2002."</p>
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Even as academics applaud what the Internet and digitization have done for research and classroom learning, some also express concern that it has changed the way students read.</p>
<p>With search engines able to scan millions of print sources for a single passage, a generation with an already short attention span is being encouraged to behave like literary "hunters," snatching up nuggets for classroom credit without necessarily benefiting from the rhythm and the flow of the entire written work.</p>
<p>Often, say some professors, students are unable to distinguish between what's credible and what's bogus as information needed for an assignment piles onto their screens.</p>
<p>The very way online information is accessed -- by jumping from one Web site to the next -- does little to encourage linear thought as is used when reading a book....</p>
<p>Such concerns are heard most often across the humanities, where professors in book-centric disciplines must convince young adults raised on Google that wandering the library stacks, and looking beyond the first plausible answer to a question, are key elements of learning....
<p>University libraries have evolved over the years. Our son is taking two courses involving primarily group projects. He has been spending between 12-20 hrs/wk in the main library because it is centrally located, has a cafe, offers group study rooms that can be reserved and is an esthetically pleasing place with great views of the city(albeit Troy), an interior water sculpture, and of course high capacity wifi.</p>
<p>He is also doing an independent study this semester and ramping up to his senior thesis work, so the library is becoming a second home for him in his senior year. He mentioned that he prefers printed journal material vs dbase media. However as the OP article mentions, I assume that searching is always done on-line.</p>
<p>Yep, that’s exactly how I used to behave <em>cough</em> years ago when I was on deadline for a paper and needed some quotes and references for credibility. I just had to use books and their indexes instead of the Internet.</p>
<p>Since computers have altered the way we write – much for the better, I think – I am willing to live with the perhaps-less-desirable ways in which they have altered how we read.</p>
<p>I now get frustrated at books because they aren’t fully searchable.</p>
<p>A lot of interesting work has been on the topic of the impact on IT on linear reading, research, and the future of archives (as well as archival research mehtods). Abstracts on topics such as “Web Access to the Original Archival Records - Challenging the Old Information Order?” and “The Politics and Ethics of Electronic Archiving” can be found at:</p>
<p>“The New Information Order and the Future of the Archive”</p>
<p>For researchers and those who just love books and libraries, real or digital, Princeton’s Anthony Grafton writes in the New Yorker on the present, past, and future of the medium:</p>
<p>I tried reading one of Sir Walter Scott’s early novels on line, Marmion, and just couldn’t hack it. Maybe I just am a crochety senior, too set in my ways.</p>
<p>BTW, the web site for many on line works is:</p>
<p>using computers doesn’t mean using websites…</p>
<p>I have access to hundreds (thousands, likely) of journals (any year, any issue) in whatever field I want from my dorm room. There’s no way to twist that to say it’s a negative.</p>