Critically react to the view that conventional libraries are no longer relevant in comtemporary society considering the ubiquitous nature of the internet?

Answer 1

A library is a building where the local government keeps books for public reference and entertainment; the internet is a bunch of web pages accessed by computer which are hosted by different people, businesses, and government organizations. A library usually contains books by experts on many topics, which are not available online. Research in a library consists of finding books useful to the subject you want to study and reading them or looking through them. The information is generally anywhere from a few months to many years old, and newer information may have shown the old information to be wrong; but the research necessary to write a book means that the information has a high chance of being accurate and reliable. The internet contains information, usually of a less specific nature, regarding many topics; the information is only as reliable as the effort & fact-checking put into it by the author. Internet information is usually up to day to within minutes, but the lack of research in many cases means that the information is less accurate. A library may have internet access, to allow both book research and online research; the internet is beginning to have access to many more books, to allow research through library materials. The term "Library" has changed over the years, and is no longer strictly used for the physical building of the library or the collected printed works contained therein; these days it's also used for almost any systematic catalog of information. The internet, in this case, is not a systematic collection of information; although some web pages try to sort that information (search engines) and others present their information in a systematic fashion, the entire internet is not systematically designed with the content in mind. The only system involved in the design of the internet involves it's technical addressing system, the IP addressing scheme.

Answer Library collections are built by information professionals using selection criteria. Books and tools in the library have not only been specifically chosen by librarians/information professionals, but have been edited and evaluated before that. The vast majority of information on the internet has not been edited, evaluated, and selected for accuracy, authority, objectivity, accountability, etc. as information in the library has. When you search for information in the library, librarians can help you find and evaluate resources to meet your needs. Librarians can also help you find high quality information online and show you how to evaluate web sites.

To increase your chances of finding information online that has been evaluated by subject experts or information experts, use subject guides instead of search engines for important information. Examples: Librarians' Internet Index (www.lii.org), ipl (Internet Public Library) (www.ipl.org), Scout Archives (scout.wisc.edu/Archives), Infomine (infomine.ucr.edu), Bubl (bubl.ac.uk). There are also subject specific subject guides.