Internet Library

Slide 7 of 16

Services like America Online and WebTV are making it easier for people with less technical knowledge to actually get on-line. But once you are on- line you are still entirely on your own when it comes to finding information. And what's the use of being there if you can't find what you need? The real training problem for the future will not be teaching people how to use computers, it will be teaching them information literacy.

I teach classes a few times a month at my local public library branch on how to use the Internet. I've been doing this for over two years now. When I first started, most of the people coming in for the classes had never used the Internet before and they were curious to see what it was like. Today many of my pupils have Internet access at home through a service like AOL, but for all of their effort they can never find anything. They are coming in to the library to learn how to find information in this new on-line resource. They can't get that kind of help on the Internet itself.