I am beginning to reflect on our constant struggle to get students and teachers to use our subscription library databases (things like Gale and Newsbank), and it is a struggle. Kids and teachers don’t want to have to remember to first access the library webpage, then login, then select the library database, then login again – they’d much rather just go to Google and start searching. This struggle has been going on for at least 5 years that I can remember in my district, and I’m beginning to wonder: If students and teachers are this resistant to using subscription databases, and if they’d much rather use the free search engines that are widely available, could the money spent on those databases be better spent elsewhere? Perhaps instead of fighting this battle, we should save our money, and spend our efforts on teaching the teachers and students how to search using the tools that will be available to them once they leave our school district. Maybe we should be teaching them to use the advanced search features of Google – limit their searches, specify using Google Scholar or some of the special Google tools. We should be concentrating our efforts on teaching them how to evaluate what they find, not on how and where to look for it. Teach how to figure out who is behind the website (or web directory) and what their agenda may be. Maybe it’s time to give up the losing battle and pick one we can win, or at least break even on.
