The school media candidate for SLIS faculty that gave her presentation, Kyungwon Koh, discussed her research on teenagers’ use of digital media. One point that I found interesting, especially in light of this article, was that the teenagers interviewed recognized that the information found on wikis might not be accurate because of the open manner in which anyone could add information. The teenagers realized the need to consult further sources of information  Obviously asking a librarian for help would be a great way to find further sources.

Here Pete Coco’s article on Google and information literacy discusses a similar topic. Coco’s argument is that librarians should not stop teaching students (or patrons) information literacy just because Google makes searching easy. The author notes that Google, as a commercial search tool, has a different purpose than that of a library search tool and that the convenience of Google searching doesn’t always lead to good results. He promotes information literacy instruction to teach the students not only the purpose of a library search tool but also how to use said tool to find better and more relevant results.

When listening to Dr. Koh’s presentation, I didn’t think of the link between this finding of hers and information literacy until I read the blog post on convenience and Google. Searching Google is easy yes, but doesn’t always bring up good results. It is encouraging that the teenagers in the study recognized this pitfall of searching (at least in the context of wikis). Teaching patrons how to search and find better results is certainly something librarians should promote.