Avoiding the Cereal Syndrome, or Critical Thinking in the Electronic Environment

Abstract

ADVANCEShave allowed the "supercatalog" to move IN TECHNOLOGY from an idea to a reality.With its multiple databases and integrated structures, the supercatalog offers access to more information more easily than ever before.For all the advantages that this new technology offers, there are also problems that must be recognized and confronted.The most serious of these is that users must choose from a multitude of possibilities in order to fulfill their information needs.Research about consumer tolerance for making choices, whether about cereals or databases, suggests that "more is less," not "more is more."Thus, it is imperative that librarians adequately prepare users with the critical thinking skills that are necessary to take advantage fully of the new electronic environment.More than ever, critical thinking must become the core of bibliographic instruction.When George Orwell (1949) penned his now famous phrase "Freedom is Slavery," he was not thinking about the emergence of a sophisticated integrated information retrieval system.Yet, his dystopian vision of a world where choice results in individual confusion and anxiety presages at least one of the critical issues emerging from our increased abilities to provide access to a wide range of information easily and transparently-i.e., making choices.This problem is not limited to online information systems.Indeed, it is becoming a growing area of concern in our everyday lives.Perhaps an illuminating, if mundane, example of this problem