RE: Student's view of books vs online

["Ken Masters" <kmasters@ithealthed.com>]

Hi All

Chris is quite right - books can be out of date (therefore, 
inaccurate) before they're published.

But it goes further than merely being out of date.  If your 
education was anything like mine, you were probably brought up to 
believe (whether stated or not), that books could be trusted. 
(Of course, it was only when one came across texts like "Mein 
Kampf" that we realised books could lie just as easily as 
anything and anyone else).

With the Internet, my impression is that the strength of the 
books amongst our generation still holds, with the Internet being 
the place "where anyone can put any old rubbish."  But the 
problem is that we lose our healthy scepticism.  Here's a 
wonderful article by Zick Rubin who found himself recorded as 
dead on the Internet.  No matter how much he tried to correct it, 
it wouldn't go away.  The problem was that his death was recorded 
in a book, and you can't argue with a book.

The title of the article is "How the Internet Tried to Kill Me," 
but I think he missed the point - the original book 'killed' him
- the Internet simply followed the tradition of referring to the 
book.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13rubin.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Regards

Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman
E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: Student's view of books vs online
> From: "Armbruster, Chris" <Chris.Armbruster@EUI.eu>
> Date: Thu, March 10, 2011 7:34 am
> To: "liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu" <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
>
> Maybe the student has a point... if I think about how long it 
> takes to get a book written (edited) and how long it takes to 
> get it published and how long it then takes to have it 
> reviewed... maybe the best that can be said for them is that 
> they are 'quite accurate' if a little out of date?
>
> Chris Armbruster
>
> From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> [owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]
> On Behalf Of Ken Masters [kmasters@ithealthed.com]
> Sent: 08 March 2011 23:08
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Student's view of books vs online
>
> Hi All
>
> Here's an interesting comment from one of my students, during a 
> presentation to the class:
>
> "You can use Google Books, because, as we know, there is 
> information in books also, not only online, and usually the 
> information in the books is also quite accurate."
>
> My, times have changed.
>
> Regards
>
> Dr. Ken Masters
> Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
> Medical Education Unit
> College of Medicine & Health Sciences
> Sultan Qaboos University
> Sultanate of Oman