I have been using digital libraries for well over ten years. When I was attending Trident University
International (TUI) for my B.S.B.A. and M.B.A., I became very intimate with
ProQuest and other digital resources.
While attending the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy, not only
did I have access to its vast media center but also digital libraries such as
the Combined Arms Research Library (http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/)
and the Pentagon Digital Library (http://www.whs.mil/library/).
I use the Google search engine for a variety of things. I use it to take me to a website that I do
not know the URL for, to look up things that I am interested in, to find out
information about people or things that intrigue me and much more. However, search engines are only reliable to
a point. One might stumble upon a
website that has not been vetted, validated and offer substantiated
information. There are plenty of
those. There are look-alike sites, sites
filled with agendas, false information, manufactured information and even
outright lies.
As I explored the Hunt Library, I thought about the differences
between search engine results and authentic digital libraries and what makes a
resource scholarly or not. As previously
mentioned, search engines sometimes offer unverified information. It’s not that someone cannot find scholarly
information by using search engines but searching requires time and once
information is found it mused be vetted for authenticity and reliability. With that said, I verified my thesis by doing
a search for “LEADERSHIP CONCEPTS” at both www.google.com
and at the Embry-Riddle’s digital Hunt Library using only the first search
result. My Google search produced the
following result: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html. As I review the web page, “Big Dog &
Little Dog’s Performance Juxtaposition: Concepts of Leadership by Donald Clark
it was easy to see that Mr. Clark uses other verifiable sources to produce his
page. His concepts are not his own. I’m not claiming plagiarism however Clark
fills his page with other verifiable resources and scholarly writings. If I wished to use Clark’s website as a
source or reference for research, I would also have to cite all of the sources
and references that he had used. When I
used the same search criteria at the Hunt Library, my search produced the
following result: http://voyager.db.erau.edu:7008/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=1&recCount=50&recPointer=488&bibId=236605. As I reviewed the reference abstract, Key
Concepts in Leadership/Jonathan Golsing, Stephanie Jones and Ian Sutherland with
Joost Dijkstra, Los Angeles [CA]; London: Sage (2012) it became immediately
clear that this was a verified scholarly reference that did not require me to
search other references and sources.
This was the only source needed.
In closing, it is evident that using digital libraries is
definitely a better resource for my studies that using a search engine because
of its reliability and verified references.
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