Today's library, tomorrow's 'googlary'?

I feel that for one to acquire best learning and obtaining information, we need both the sublime library and the convenient internet.

When we use the internet to find information, the onus is on us to decide which information is reliable and which is not. When we use the information sources that are provided by the library, I am sure that they have been selected with users' needs in mind and that they are reliable sources. Moreover, someone could get information on a subject off the internet and get it from a non-legitimate source. If you use the internet you do have a greater chance of finding false information, however, if you go to a library your resources are limited to whatever books or magazine articles that library might contain. I think that using a mix of the two to obtain and compare different information is strongly encouraged. If you do decide to use the internet to gather information then try to look for sights that may have trustworthy information such as organizations dedicated to the topic.

No doubt that the internet is much easier now. The internet has many advantages over the library or a set of encyclopedias where you can have a whole world of information right at your fingertips. Many sources are available on here and you stay right at your desk instead of looking for lots of books and flipping through them to do your research. However, some of the best online information sources are not free. I cannot afford to buy these services. But the library pays the access fee so that all patrons can use these online fee-based resources. Having information that is simply not available on the internet free, we limit our searching to free sources, missing a great deal of valuable information. Therefore, we should use both library sources and free internet sources for a comprehensive search.

The internet is not organized like a library is. Sometimes locating what you want on the Web is a trial-and-error process. I appreciate the ease with which I can find information in an organized library. I think that another major advantage of going to the library is the availability of getting assistance from a librarian. These people have been trained in how to do research. They know the best ways of locating information--stuff that most people don't know about. More than once, I have been referring myself to the reference desk and ask for assistance on certain information which I had been looking for hours with no luck. You would then be amazed when they show me how to find what I want in only a few minutes.

In regards to morality, many people resort to dishonesty when it comes to the convenient internet. Students or even adults often “copy and paste” information found on the internet and do not acknowledge it, furthermore, claiming it their own. It makes them believe that they can rely on internet for their future work which leads to continuous attempts to do so. This would be harmful to an individual when it comes to exams or tests where one would turn blank out of ideas and start panicking at the fact that it is only the first few times when he/she does his/her own work. Some may brush through them and still possess the wrong mindset.

All in all, it is important to strike a balance between internet and the library and always remember and adhere to the dos and ‘don’ts of an honest being.