News & Updates
Small Talk From the VP: Cars, Decisions and Information Literacy
By Dave Smallen
November 19, 2014
Purchasing a new car can be an overwhelming and unpleasant experience. According to a recent survey by Edmunds.com, one in five people said they'd willingly give up sex for a month rather than haggle for a new car. One in three said they'd rather do taxes, go to the DMV, or sit in an airplane's middle seat. This was the challenge I faced when I wanted to replace my ten year old car.
I did the most logical thing first, collecting information on the car I wanted using Consumerreports.org. The online Kelly Blue Book (kbb.org) was the next resource on my list to determine a likely trade-in price for my car, followed by a visit to my local car dealer. Unfortunately, my interaction with the car salesman (and his manager) only served to question the data I had so diligently collected.
Thoroughly discouraged, I turned to a colleague for advice. She recommended a respected local credit union, which then led me to a service called carbuyershelpline.com. For a fee, the service will locate a dealer and negotiate a lower sale price and a good trade-in for my existing car. They do all the work, I avoid all the hassle. I just bring my trade-in for evaluation. For comparison I also investigated another online service, Truecar.com. I had read about the CEO of this company in Inc. Magazine (inc.com). You enter the details about the car you want and this service locates a local dealer and provides a price the dealer is willing to meet. The prices for the new car from each service were the same, and Truecar offered an additional $100 discount because I was a AAA member. Armed with the trade-in price from carbuyers.com I was able to have the local dealer match the trade-in price. In the end I purchased the car from the local dealer with minimal negotiation. The key to the successful search was locating credible sources of information and doing the analysis that confirmed the prices were reasonable.
Purchasing a car, learning how to manage a difficult medical condition, or choosing a new job are all examples of big decisions we might face in a lifetime. Smaller decisions, such as selecting an appropriate research topic for a paper or choosing a reliable news source to share on Facebook, depend upon the same skills used for larger life decisions. Empowering students to use technology to locate, evaluate, interpret, and manage information is central to effective decision-making. These are all components of what we call information literacy, something that is central to the LITS mission.
With over ninety percent of our students having smart phones, ninety-nine percent having laptop computers, and almost all students regularly using social networking, access to information is easy. Evaluating that information for credibility and analyzing various forms of information to arrive at decisions can be complex. Separating opinion from fact and determining relevance to a decision are critical lifetime skills. LITS’ new Discovery Service, One Search, can help you uncover the right information to make smart decisions. Our team of librarians is here to help you clarify your goals, identify credible sources, and create strategies for arriving at a decision. Stop by Burke Library to begin the process (and good luck!).
