For Release January 11, 2000

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

It is kind of interesting how an idea for this column is born. A sequence of unrelated short comments and conversations over the past couple of months led to this week’s column. The seed was really planted last summer when a home gardener came into the office with leaves from a tomato plant that had a problem. This person had spent considerable time on the Internet trying to find an answer. This person in Georgia had said this, and a person in Boston had said this, and someone in California had said this. I’m sure the folks in those three locations were good gardeners, but none of them had gardened in Kansas, and no one had given this person the correct answer.

Now fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. An editor/writer friend and I were visiting about books. He pulled out a turn of the century book and made the comment, "Now, here’s a book. There seems to be so much junk printed today not even to mention what’s out there in the cyber sewer."

It used to be that to have a book published you had to go through some very stringent evaluations. It wasn’t cheap and it wasn’t easy to have a book published. If it made it off the printing press then it was truly something, or the author was independently wealthy. Now days, anyone can publish their own book. With the computer software that’s available almost anyone can generate a manuscript and with copy centers and high speed copiers, poof, you have a book. Then you create a web site and you can promote your publication. The problem is, there’s no editorial review board, no peer review, no one to validate what is in print.

One of the earliest things that I learned in college was that when it came to computer analyis, and this was back in the days of punch cards and large mainframe computers, garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t have good information to start with, your analysis isn’t going to be any good either.

Now jump up to the end of last week. I was listening to a speaker talk about the future of the Extension Services around the country. The question that was posed was something about, with all the information available at our fingertips, is the Extension Service still needed? It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. What I wanted to ask in response was, "With all the electronic garbage at our fingertips, who’s going to help sort through it?"

Yes, there’s a lot of "stuff" out there on the Internet and in the myriad of printed material. Some of it is good valid information, just not appropriate to Kansas. Some of it is the modern day equivalent of snake oil and entirely too much of it is nothing more than electronic garbage. You can end up at somebody’s web site that looks pretty sharp and seems to have all the answers, only to find out that it’s nothing more than a fancy advertisement for whatever it is they are selling.

So what do you do? Where do you go to get reliable information? Start with your local resources. Naturally, I’m a little prejudiced and feel that the Extension Service has the best information in most cases. That’s because we aren’t trying to sell you anything, we’re just trying to help you find an answer. But we aren’t the only source of information. Check with the local nurseryman, or elevator operator or garden center owner. Extension Services in surrounding states would be a good third choice. There’s a lot of garbage out there and finding the good information is sometimes the needle in the haystack search. Starting your search close to home will often bring you the best results!

-30-

Return to Agri-Views Home Page

Return to Ag Home Page