Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

 

Date of this Version

11-19-2019

Abstract

This article discusses information seeking behavior developed by elementary school students in completing academic assignments, their reasons for using smartphone to find information related to academic assignments, and students' opinions about the role of school libraries. All data presented in this article are the results of a study on 500 elementary school students in four major cities in East Java Province, Indonesia, namely Surabaya, Malang, Madiun and Malang. This study found that there has been a change in information seeking behavior among elementary students who no longer rely solely on information from textbooks in the libraries. The students have become part of the YouTube Generation that uses more social media (YouTube) via smartphone. According to the elementary school students, YouTube is a social media platform that provides information that is easily understood, while Google offers unlimited information. Students' confidence in the library as a source of information began to fade. Students in the millennial era often perceived libraries as sources of information from school textbooks, not as sources of information that are able to provide broad and varied information. To maintain the existence of school libraries, the role of school librarians that is urgently developed in the future is that librarians must change the way of learning and the choice of information sources among YouTube generation by collaborating with teachers in developing digital and information literacy skills among students.

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