LIB1201 Research and Documentation for the Information Age Fall 2016

Assignment 8B

In the article “Who’s in Charge here? Authority, Authoritativeness, and the Undergraduate Researcher”, Meszaros describes different factors involving authority between teachers, librarians, and  students.  One of the lady speaks of is what a popular of students think of their faculty members within their school. Administrative authority is defined as “one has by virtue of occupying a position. One’s moral behavior determines one’s occupancy. When students pay attention to their professors, it is largely because they are afraid for their grades and they want to get a nice grade. Students don’t listen to their professors because of their skill. At the end of the day the authority is the one who has reasoning abilities that help you as a student feel self-confident and help you succeed. It does not matter whether it is a professor or a librarian.

Meszaros article “Who’s in Charge Here” opens with the views of librarians that blame themselves when students often do not take advantage of their expertise in that they ask their peers, parents, or even stranger-student for help rather than the helpful librarian. The article went on to discuss the notion that instructional faculty command more authority than librarians. Meszaros calls this authority “administrative authority”- an authority one has by virtue of occupying position.

Still, there is a crisis of authority- “The New Epistemology”  says Tim Clydesdale. After interviewing 400 students on 34 campuses Clydesdale found only few were in awe of their institutions or faculty. And most ambivalent about anyone’s knowledge claims other than their own.

So, what does “questioning authority” means? Meszaros answers it this way “who do not get respect or who get less.” Yet, the more important question he says is how all of us can validate the notion of disciplinary cognitive authority so as to help students move beyond the unsophisticated epistemological positions of dualism or multiplicity. Thus, librarians can join hands with faculty by focusing less on issues of access and retrieval and more on students attitudes and beliefs about expertise and cognitive authority.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was created to allow any American citizen the right to view records developed by the federal government. However, information that falls under one of the nine exemptions cannot be viewed. This includes trade secrets, law enforcement records, personnel files, and geophysical information among others.

The American agency that administers the work proposed in FOIA is the Archive. The Archive contains published material that has been collected from the FOIA act, Mandatory Declassification Review, presidential paper collections, congressional records, and court testimonies.

Yes, I believe the FOIA benefits the general public greatly because it allows them to know the truth. As a result, the government gains trust from the general public and the general public learns information that can prevent or aid future and current issues.