Source: Year13
The article reads “The Great Research Disaster” by one William Badke of Trinity Western University, and while yes, there are many things that student Liw Ekdab did that were both a) accurate to students, and b) academically (even morally) questionable, I still feel that Badke’s reaction is somewhat over the top. While I agree that Liw could have better used his available resources – like actually reading articles related to his research topic, accessing online databases like JSTOR, etc. – I feel like Badke carries an undertone of the older generation. Namely, it feels like Badke implies some condescension when it comes to accessing resources through non-traditional, but now modern, means.
He snarks, “[Liw]…had some fun blowing off the library in the process.”, and I must snark back, “Not everyone has the time to go to the library, and also, libraries offer online databases that Liw didn’t use, but many students do, thus libraries are not always a requirement” (50). While Bardke might mean nothing by this statement, I still standby the idea that research as Bardke imagines it – libraries, archives, stacks upon stacks of books – does not fully define research today. In the modern world, students have access to a variety of means of gathering research. GoogleBooks has thousands of books scanned and uploaded online the web as PDFs, while databases GoogleScholar links to online journals and articles that are either published online originally or scanned, again, as PDFs. Likewise, even university libraries provide online databases for students, linking full text PDFs, online articles, and more.
So yes, Liw may have not used these online resources to their full extent (nor did he use them quite the way they are meant to be used), but I have to disagree with this notion that libraries must be the definite picture of research. Education, and that includes research, must adapt with the times. Sorry Badke, but maybe for my next research project, or paper, or assignment, I’ll “[have] some fun blowing off the library” too (50).
Source: The Odyssey Online