http://www.broom.org/epic/

One way is to connect with students on a subject they like. Sure the class they might be taking may only be for fullfilling some college requirement, but a good educator will find a way to divine the interconnectedness of all things to inspire a student to learn.

This will likely take something that is not very popular, time and extra work.

The most difficult class i have ever taken was Quantitative Research Methodologies. A required class that forced me to assign a number to the most absract subjects. It also forced me to reaccess my views on these abstract subjects. In the end the class made me a better researcher even though i fought it up until the research started to show results that i would not have arrived at were it not for the attempted quantification of the seemingly unquantifiable.

Learning how to use research materials be they found in the stacks or out in cyberspace needs one element, the ability to discern the rough from the smooch. Students need to be first taught how to identify crap research — building blocks.

and just a comment on the difference between research online and inthe library. writing a paper in a pinch students are better able to find the quotes that fit into their papers, (and in some cases plagerize), than they are in a book. The world does seem to move faster with the emergence of technologies that put information at your finger tips. Thus the subtle nuances of a book should also be brought to a students attention. One great way to accomplish this is write a script for a documentary based on one short book.

My pal Kevin pointed me to this post from danah boyd in which she explains why she doesn’t patronize the library buildings in her vicinity.
I use the word “buildings” advisedly, of course, because as any academic must, danah uses library services…

I always found wandering the stacks at Berkeley to be at least as solitary and serendipitous as I now experience sitting in front of my computer and doing web searches, if not more so. I don’t remember ever running into a librarian anywhere in the stacks–and I usually would have entire isles of books to myself.

At one time, I had about 100 books checked out from UCB, for about 18 months–once they allowed you to renew online (via telnet!), such a feat was quite convenient. (Though before, carrying boxes across campus to the library, just to have them renewed, was an awful experience.)

Anyway, I mention this just to contrast your own experience.

In terms of validity, the best thing about a library is when, within a couple shelve, one can see lots of points of view on the same subject. And, honestly, one can only do that in the very best libraries that specialize in particular subjects.

I would say, only in those special cases, are libraries better than online. And, I’ve hardly met anyone who has traveled around the world just to visit these special libraries.

The article that you point to certainly raises horror stories about students and young people who do not evaluate their sources. However, I do think it would be useful for students to be fully versed in both research online and offline. The least that a student can take away with them from high school or undergrad would be to know how to conduct research in the library and on the comptuer. I also echo Rayne’s concerns about how information online could be filtered without our knowing it. This probably also happens in publishing houses in terms of what books get printed and distributed, but there is more of a sense of direct access to the information, which search engines could certainly play with without our ever knowing it. Of course, maybe I’m turning too paranoid here, but I don’t tend to trust corporations.

Also, aren’t libraries heading towards more online media anyway? Book storage is expensive compared to what could be stored electronically, and I think I read an article about a librarian wondering about the future of libraries in Chronicles of Higher Education….

When asked to describe the net, or more presisely the google end of the web, to a remote tribal people in zambia i explained that it was like you had a man sitting in the middle of your village, and you could ask him anything at all in the world. He would give you six answers to your question, and one or maybe two of them would be right. They saw a value in that, and i see one too. Even that wrong information, the stuff you’ll discard due to contradiction or source problems, gives a bigger picture than just getting what you hope is the authoritative answer everytime.