Pdf alibi syndrome

Information, knowledge and education are often usedinterchangeably. Basically, information gives us knowledge and later gives uswisdom with a mutual effect over each other. Reading habit being the soul ofknowledge and wisdom is driven by an access to authentic literature preservedin books and manuscripts. In the present world we have a wealth of informationat our finger tips thanks to IT revolution. And gone are the days when paperbooks used to be the only dependable sources of information or knowledge forus. And those times are also over when scholars needed to travel and visitlibraries to get a particular book, manuscript or an article available in aparticular library hundreds or thousands of miles away. Because of revolutionin information and communication technology, the emergence of e-library hasopened doors to innumerable sources of high quality literature freely availableor against paid access over the internet. Having a computer, laptop, smartphone or some related gadget with an internet connectivity is the onlyrequirement that we get access to varied domains of e-literature through anetwork of search engines, repositories, open educational resources, andknowledge domains. We put a keyword/s in search engine, locate the desiredfiles, download them preferably as pdf, have an overview of them, save themhappily in the desired locations of our computers or smart phones and lateraccess them (to read) as per our need and convenience.

However, this open access to millions of e-files or pdfs(books, articles, research papers, manuscripts, theses, etc.) over the internetis not free of drawbacks but has given rise to a lot of issues and challengesconfronting the use of e-library or e-search. The pdf alibi syndrome is one ofthose problems. Pdf (portable document format) you all know what it is, ourfavourite file form to use but alibi has made it a syndrome. Dear readers I amnot referring to a typical medical or genetic disorder or a disease or asyndrome of health implications. Neither it is any floating idea or myth, noris it something like a fellowship after your PhD. It is something a few peoplemight be knowing or unknowingly may be suffering from it. Those of us who areat research and have to write a thesis, are badly caught in it, because theyare supposed to do a lot of literature survey over the www. During my PhDprogramme, I had downloaded and stored hundreds of pdfs in my computer hard diskand when it occupied much of the computer memory, later transferred them to USBdrive and CDs, etc., but never got time to actually open and read them. Only afew I could manage to read, so I was in it or I am still in it (pdf alibisyndrome). And I guess many of those who are reading this article might be thesufferers of this very syndrome.

   

Now without making it complex, let me simplify it: it isnothing but an academic problem wherein a knowledge seeker (internet surfer ora searcher) has the habit of downloading and saving pdfs of free e-books in thehope (but in vain) that one day (he/she) will get around to open and read them(but without actually caring to read them) and gain information, knowledge andwisdom. Undoubtedly, pdf software has made our documentation and readingchoices easy to our utmost convenience and comfort. However, most of the timeswe search the internet for hours together and accumulate much more pdfs in ourdigital memories that we actually need or require. Later we do a bit ofcleaning process and delete the old files without actually caring for thepurpose we had kept them. Or if we have a storage problem or issues with ourcomputers, we utilise many online storage spaces like dropbox, iBooks, Kindleor Cloud to store these files or sometimes in our e-mails for a ready access.So download and save is the general perception and reading is very rare withthese pdf’s.

Now imagine the piles of photocopies or originalmanuscripts, journals and books in our cabinets or book racks occupying asignificant portion of physical space of our work places and houses. Therefore,one wonders as to how easy e-library has made it for us to store the pdfswithin least possible spaces and simplified our reading anytime, anywhere justa click away. However, knowledge management has assumed much significance inview of the huge mass of literature and information access. But we mustremember that knowledge is not created by accumulating information (in thepresent case pdfs), it is an understanding and wisdom shaped by perceptions andexperiences. So we have to believe that pdf alibi is a syndrome and not aknowledge boom. To end this piece, I recall a saying of T.S. Eliot, “where isthe knowledge we have lost in information and where is the wisdom we have lostin knowledge”.

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