Got this message via the Infolit listserv today: Debra C. Rollins <drollins@lsua.edu> found an interesting article on Library Babel Fish and thought you might enjoy it too.
The article, by a college librarian, discusses how college professors often spend more time in assignments telling student the mechanics of a paper rather than helping them find good resources for the assignment.
Project Information Literacy is a study being conducted by the Information School at the University of Washington, "a national study about early adults and their information-seeking behaviors, competencies, and the challenges they face when conducting research in the digital age."
This is definitely a problem at the high school level as well where students are even less prepared to make good choices about what resources are best employed to complete research assignments. More often than not teachers seem to think kids should already know how t find the best resources rather than spending some time, along with the librarian, teaching kids how to determine the best resources for an assignment.
It's not that often that a teacher brings a class in to find short stories to read. Today Jeff Ryan brought two of his American Lit classes to the library to find short stories.
I was able to show them how to find short stories using the catalog--search for the subject "Short stories," for example. Then I explained than in our library story collections by more than one author are kept in a special collection at the end of all the fiction books but that short story collections by one author are interfiled with the authors novels in the main fiction collection.
We also explored some online sources for stories. Since I had just recently downloaded the MARC records (1306 titles!) for the e-book collection at the University of Adelaide (Australia) I showed them how they could access the books directly from the catalog. Of course, most of the stories online are in the public domain and therefore fall into the "classic" designation.
Jeff had already alerted them several other collections online from his web page and I plan on linking to those sites as soon as I can from the library catalog. Some of the better ones included Bibliomania, Short Story Classics, and Classic Short Stories.
A couple other classes also used the library today.
Aaron Simon brought his Pre-calculus class to work on conic sections and vector projects. There's a well-established Mathematics page on the Library website which features a Google Custom Search box that searches good quality math websites. Students find the search and the links to specific sites to be particularly useful for this project.
And Matt Tierney brought his Psych class in to view some "magic eye" images.
I'm continuing to weed items from the library. I'm focusing right now on the 500s--especially the 580s, Botany. A lot of the items were given new call numbers in the 333 (Environmental protection area). We have a lot of material on the rain forests which were purchased in the 1980s and 1990s which had been classified with botany but are more properly located with forest conservation. Next year I will look into updating this collection with some newer titles.
Another area with a lot of older titles is the wild flower guides and other general botanical guides. Books such as these are used when Integrated Science students are doing their ecological transect projects. I've set up a Category in the catalog which brings many of these items together under the topic of California field guides. I tried to tag all of the appropriate books I reviewed today with that topic. It makes it easier to find the titles when the kids are working on the project--for them and for me.
I helped Jean, an aide in the Sheltered English class (ELL students), to explore the library's home page with its wealth of resources. She was a bit overwhelmed so I showed her some specific databases and how they work. We accessed periodicals through the library catalog, Sequoyah, as well as playing around with PowerSearch Plus, Gale's federated search engine.
Robert Winkler came by with copies of an article he had seen in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books about the treatment of terrorism suspects in the War on Terror. He wondered whether the secret report it referred to could be found online. It was produced by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2004 and all of their reports are officially secret. I looked using various search engines and databases but couldn't find the specific report he wanted. I did find some other documents so I printed them out and will add them to the Pamphlet file on Torture. His students are producing reports on topics related to Orwell's novel, 1984, and current events.
Tomorrow the Mock Senate will be held in several different locations at Redwood. One of the venues is the Bessie Chin Library where students will present, debate and vote on various bills they have been working over the past several weeks. They have been using CQ Researcher and Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center intensively for this project. The main library portal for information on Congressional resources can be found on the Library's Government page. Look for pictures in tomorrow's blog posting.
Several classes were in the library today. Emily Satterstrom brought her AP Language and Literature classes in to continue doing research on their controversial topic papers. I had questions about educational law, environmental law, and suburbia in the 1950s among others. It's great when students are willing to ask for help and realize they don't have to do it all on their own. I'm looking forward to seeing the completed papers.
The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed. has finally hit the book stores and there's a great deal of energy being expended on the library listservs about the changes to MLA style. We had a preview last year when the 3rd ed. of the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing came out. The Library has begun to change its web page about Citing Sources to reflect the new style. We have also developed a presentation which explains the new conventions and which is available for anyone to use. Updates will be provided as soon as we get our copy of the Handbook. The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University has an interesting page on the changes.
Two of Mr. Winkler's classes came on a follow-up visit to continue finding information about their papers related to their reading of Orwell's 1984. Robert had started this project last year and this year gave his students four sheets with directions for the project including one specifically about library resources. He is requiring that they use Opposing Viewpoints Resouce Center or CQ Researcher to find information on several topics related to the post-9/11 world including the PATRIOT ACT, torture, privacy rights, etc. The students will relate the issues they have been reading about in their text to similar contemporary issues.
So far the kids really seem to be using the resources very well; specifically steering away from Google searches which bring them too many hits which they realize they can't really begin to read or undertand in the amount of time they have to produce the paper.
The students are also encouraged to use library print materials about the topics and today were able to check out library books for the first time since the project began.
Sharing the library today were two other classes. Mike Keleman brought his U.S. history classes in for their second day finding primary source documents for their research project on various civil rights topics. Some are looking for info on the women's movement, others are researching the African American civil rights movement, still others Hispanic Americans or Native Americans. I didn't have as much time to show them how to find primary source documents online but did show them how to identify books with primary sources in the library's catalog by searching for subject headings which include the term "Sources." Most seemed to be finding enough material. Mike commented today that helping the kids was real exercise in patience--theirs and his. Most find it quite difficult to go beyond the obvious--the first link in a Google search being a familiar favorite--and digging deeper when they are looking for such resources.
We all know this is a modern syndrome--the inability or reluctance to go beyond the obvious--but it's our obligation to give the kids the motivation to go beyond the easiest and head for things which are not so accessible to those which have meaning for what they are trying to demonstrate in various papers and projects they are working on.
The kids from Emily Satterstrom's Non-fiction class are also beginning their research papers (12 pages--fairly daunting) and are coming one-by-one to inquire about topics and possible resources. I know she's encouraged them to seek me out as a resource and I think I'm up to the task. One boy had decided to investigate the relationship between music and current events and I had to think about that for a while. After sharing insights about the likes of Bob Dylan and hip-hop as reflecting the events of the times I told him I'd do a bit more research and he could check back with me. He then suggested I email him some suggestions which I thought was brilliant. I did find a terrific page at About.com about folk music which supplied some interesting jumping-off places. I also suggested that he use terms like "civil rights movement" and "music" in a search to locate more resources. I hope to find out whether these tips were useful or not and will let you know.
All in all an interesting and productive day. Some teaching, some learning. What more can one ask for?
At its February 12 meeting the TUHSD Board of Trustees approved a new course which will be offered next year at Redwood. The course, called Advanced Library Research, will offer students an introduction to college-level research skills. While we teach students at Redwood, and throughout the Tam District, how to use information efficiently and effectively through class projects in a number of different subject areas, this course will allow students to go beyond the basics of research and explore the world of academic libraries. The course will be an independent study course, taught partially face-to-face and partially online. Students will be expected to work with partners or in teams to complete various projects using all kinds of library resources. As the course of study states: “Many college librarians and professors report that students are not prepared to undertake college-level research when they reach post-secondary institutions of learning.”
We think that we can help students make the transition to college a little less traumatic by providing them with the ability to determine the nature and extent of information they need; access needed information effectively and efficiently; evaluate information critically; use information individually and in a group to accomplish a specific purpose; and understand ethical, legal, and socio-economic issues surrounding information and use information ethically and legally.
A little story. When I went to graduate school to begin my library science degree I had to take a prerequisite course about basic library research since I’d never worked in a library before. It was the best course I took in library school and I wondered why I hadn’t had the opportunity to take such a course as an undergrad—it was really eye opening to find out about all the resources I hadn’t known about but could have used. Even though that was long before the World Wide Web was developed, the same conditions apply today. As a result of the Internet the world of information has gotten infinitely larger and more complicated so having a guided tour of all kinds of resources is even more essential than it was in 1974!
Eventually we would like to have the course available across the District to all students but for the time being it will be offered at Redwood only. Encourage your sons and daughters to talk to the librarian, Tom Kaun, about the course and sign up for it during course enrolment time.
I've been off work since last Friday but visited the library twice this week for some final tasks.
Yesterday I found out from my principal that we may have a new part-time library specialist working in the library. It's complicated and since nothing is final (or even announced) I can't go into detail at this time. Suffice it to say that change may be coming to the BCL.
It's been very hot this week so I'm blogging downstairs in my bedroom at home this evening because it's cooler here than up in my office.
In an earlier post I mentioned that I was working on a new course (tentatively called Advanced Library Research). I know it's not a very sexy title but it is a work in progress. I got the approval of our Instructional Council to continue developing the course so I'm forging ahead.
I met early this week with Joan Risch at the College of Marin because I had been told by one of our graduates that she was teaching a course at COM on information literacy. It was a fruitful meeting and she gave me some interesting websites to look at especially the OASIS research tutorial produced by the librarians at SF State. She has her student complete specific parts of the tutorial before she quizzes them or provides her own assignments to them.
I think I have found a primary text for the class along with several supporting texts for reference. The primary text is the 3rd edition of Research Strategies: Finding Your Way through the Information Fog by William Badke. I was able to get a copy of the 2nd edition from UC Berkeley and was very impressed by the style and tone of the book--it's practical, down-to-earth, and covers almost all the topics I want to cover in the course. When I discovered the 3rd edition had just been published I overnighted it from Amazon and it arrived today. It's a manageable 212 pages and only costs $18.95. The author is a librarian at Trinity Western University, Langley, BC.
Other texts I've reviewed and will certainly be consulting and directing my students to are: Basic Library Skills (5th ed.) by Carolyn Wolf; The College Student's Research Companion (5th ed.) Arlene Rodda Quaratiello; and The Facts on File Guide to Research by Jeff Lenburg.
The Badke book is quite up-to-date--it mentions the Amazon Kindle--and has an accompanying website which will help keep the book current. I was just checking the site this evening and found out about Readius, a new e-book reader.
In case you haven't heard about Readius, which is only available in Europe currently, here's a YouTube video about this neat new hybrid--when's it coming here!?
I'd love to hear from others who have developed or are thinking of developing an advanced research course at the high school level.
Another, concurrent project I'm working on is a wiki for the International Baccalaureate Extended Essay. Next week I will be in Montezuma, New Mexico on the campus of the United World College for a week-long workshop about the IB program and the librarian's role in the program. I hope to post a few messages from New Mexico while I'm there. I'm hoping the new research course will blend nicely into the extended essay program of IB. I know that in many schools the librarian is the extended essay coordinator and I think that makes a lot of sense.
Any Extended Essay folks out there in library-land?
In a recent columnTime magazine's Michael Kinsley discusses his concern over two memoirs which were admitted by their authors to have been faked. One, written by a white woman, was about growing up as a half-Native American gang member in South Central (Los Angeles). The other was the story of a woman who claimed to have been a Holocaust survivor as a child, which features an episode of her having been protected by a pack of wolves for a time. Kinsley refers to these fake memoirs as "autophoniographies."
After the infamous episode a couple years ago in which James Frey's memoir turned out have been padded with tales which were exaggerated or non-existent, I moved his book from the biography section of the library to the fiction section. His wasn't the first and certainly won't be the last of such books.
Kinsley's response to the publication of these books was interesting and has implications for information professionals and those we teach: "[B]ook publishers--unlike newspaper and magazine publishers--do virtually nothing to check or warrant the accuracy of what they print." (I have a feeling Time will be getting a few letters over that comment).
I think we sometimes mislead our students when we imply in any way that they can be secure in using books (print or digital), online subscription databases, or any other source of information without scrutinizing each source with a skeptical eye.
I continually remind my students to "check every source." No source of information is perfect and all have to be taken with some skepticism. As a matter of fact, the entire process of research should be based on a kind of skeptical mindset.
And this doesn't just apply to bogus memoirs. Another recent incident in the news revealed that a study which most likely played some part in the author's winning the 2004 Nobel Prize for Medicine had to be retracted because the author couldn't later verify the results.
The bottom line is not that we throw up our hands and quit looking for information, stop creating knowledge, cease producing results--but that all of us model how to be careful in assessing and evaluating information no matter what the source.
Image via Wikipedia
