Non Google Day

Here is a suggestion for something that I reckon, would prove a hit in any academic library.  A ‘Non Google Day’.

Google is now a verb in itself, to ‘Google‘ something is the act of looking up information on the internet, “What’s a multi faceted information architecture?” ”I don’t know, why don’t you google it!“ etc.

So here is the challenge.  Make every student that you comes to you with an information query look for the information through another web based search engine other then Google, or even in a book/journal/magazine.  This excersise should prove to students that there are other resources other then Google such as www.ask.co.uk, infotrac/other online journal database, hard copy journals, the list is endless.

Pros: Increases and promotes greater information literacy, fun to do, will help lecturers who find students increasingly rely on Google for information.

Cons: Needs promotion, needs understanding and support from lecturers, not enforcable without blocking Google from whole institution (through firewall).

Although we haven’t actually done this yet at our library, it would be interesting to see if anyone has done anything similiar and the results from that excersise!