University of Google?

The Telegraph has an article about how students are "turning to the University of Google" for quick, easy answers. The academic concerned, Professor Tara Brabazon from the University of Brighton rallies against an academic world where she describes using these search engines and Wikipedia as "white bread for the mind". She continues to suggest that we need to teach students interpretive skills before we teach them technological ones. (Although I would have to argue that most of the literature suggests that these students don't need technological skills - check out the post on the PEW Internet report).

Unfortunatley, the article strays away from the librarian's role, other than to mention that the "decline in libraries, with diminishing book stocks and fewer librarians, sites such as Google offer easy answers to difficult problems." No mention is made of how we can provide user education, which is a shame. Anyway, you can make up your own mind. The article is here.