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As a newcomer to this list I was interested to read recent contributions touching on referencing and the 'Just Google it' attitude of many undergraduate students. This is a well known and much debated issue amongst academic subject librarians who spend large amounts of time teaching students about accessing a variety of (often very expensive) information resources such as Web of Science.

Telling students to just 'Google Scholar it' is a bit, but not much better than 'just Google it', partly because Google Scholar isn't a magic pill, and partly because without helping students to search it properly (i.e using more than the average 2 words per search), students will encounter the same long lists of hits they get from their normal Google search. One obvious problem is that Google Scholar will often point students towards journal articles which require a subscription to read, a subscription that their library may already have paid.

The process of finding, using, evaluating, managing and synthesising information is highly complex, it is known to information professionals around the world as Information Literacy, and includes aspects of media literacy, IT literacy and academic integrity. Find out more at: http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/

Angela Newton
Information Literacy Research Training Officer
Brotherton Library
University of Leeds
Woodhouse Lane
Leeds
LS2 9JT

Telephone: 0113 343 4983