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I find it very hard to believe as well. I've always seen libraries as a place to relax and spend seemingly endless unstructured time browsing and reading guided
by crispyambulance 10y ago
I find it very hard to believe as well. I've always seen libraries as a place to relax and spend seemingly endless unstructured time browsing and reading guided only by curiosity.
I can imagine a slight amount of anxiety back when CARD CATALOGS were commonplace and one had to understand the indexing system (the dewey decimal system), scribble down the numbers onto slips of paper, hand them to a surly librarian and then wait and wait.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sp332 10y agoThis is about college students who aren't there for unstructured reading. They have specific research goals they want to accomplish, and that's why they get anxiety when confronted with giant unfamiliar collections.
- veddox 10y agoThat doesn't change much, IMO. Sure, finding the exact book you need in a collection of several million can seem daunting, but after you've learnt the system, it takes about three minutes (most of which is walking time). And learning the system isn't hard either, at least in my library, it's a matter of minutes. So as far as I can see, there is no real excuse except "I'm not used to books because they're not the Internet".
- hueving 10y ago>Sure, finding the exact book you need in a collection of several million can seem daunting They don't know the exact book they need. That's where things go south. Any idiot can type the title into most library search systems now. The problem students have is when you ask something that requires them to figure out which books they should look in themselves.
- sp332 10y agoAccording to the article, there is often confusion about which building you're supposed to be in. So it's not always that easy.