“Just because you’ve grown up searching things in Google doesn’t mean you know how to use Google as a good research tool.” - Dr. Andrew D. Asher, Lead Research Anthropologist, ERIAL

The Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) project — a two-year series of studies conducted at Illinois Wesleyan, DePaul University, Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois — provides deep, subjective accounts of what students, librarians, and professors think of the library and one another at those institutions. While the full results of the study have not yet been published, an article in USA Today tackles some of “the sobering truths” that this research brings to light on how students view and use their campus libraries. Among them, students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it, students’ study habits are worse than thought, and, despite living in the Internet age, students are not skilled in internet searches.

Exploding the ‘Myth of the Digital Native’

The most alarming finding in the ERIAL studies was perhaps the most predictable: when it comes to finding and evaluating sources in the Internet age, students are downright lousy.

Only seven out of 30 students whom anthropologists observed at Illinois Wesleyan “conducted what a librarian might consider a reasonably well-executed search,” wrote Duke and Andrew Asher, an anthropology professor at Bucknell University, whom the Illinois consortium called in to lead the project.

Throughout the interviews, students mentioned Google 115 times — more than twice as many times as any other database. The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but the Illinois researchers found something they did not expect: students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes and displays its results. Consequently, the students did not know how to build a search that would return good sources. (For instance, limiting a search to news articles, or querying specific databases such as Google Book Search or Google Scholar.)

Duke and Asher said they were surprised by “the extent to which students appeared to lack even some of the most basic information literacy skills that we assumed they would have mastered in high school.” Even students who were high achievers in high school suffered from these deficiencies, Asher told Inside Higher Ed in an interview.

-Click for full article published August 22 in USA Today.

One of the most important problems cited in this study is the lack of training students have in how to use the library and basic research methods. That was an issue that  inspired Neal-Schuman authors Arlene Rodda Quaratiello and Jane Devine, as the subtitle of their latest book The College Student’s Research Companion, Fifth Edition: Finding, Evaluating, and Citing the Resources You Need to Succeed demonstrates. Arlene Quaratiello, formerly an academic librarian who now teaches college English, and Jane Devine, a librarian and coauthor of Going Beyond Google: The Invisible Web in Learning and Teaching, saw this desperate need for guidance and today their resource has helped thousands of students fill the knowledge gaps detailed in the ERIAL research.

Look for the full results of the ERIAL study this fall when the resulting papers, Libraries and Student Culture: What We Now Know, are scheduled to be published by the American Library Association. And if the myth of the digital native has haunted your classroom or library, consider how Neal-Schuman’s full range of Information Literacy texts might help you improve your students’ research and information literacy skills.

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ALA created an opportunity to recognize people who have contributed to the field of librarianship and information science in a remarkable way, and one of those people was Neal-Schuman author Dr. Lesley S. J. Farmer, recipient of the 2011 ALA Beta Phi Mu Award for distinguished service to education in librarianship at the annual ALA convention in New Orleans. In a recent interview, I had a chance to ask this veteran of the profession about her experiences, her forthcoming book on instructional design, and her views on the challenges facing teacher-librarians and school librarianship.

A professor at California State University Long Beach, Lesley S. J. Farmer coordinates CSU’s Librarianship program. Dr. Farmer has worked as a teacher-librarian in K-12 school settings as well as in public, special, and academic libraries. She is the co-author of the The Neal-Schuman Technology Management Handbook for School Library Media Centers and the author of the forthcoming Instructional Design for Librarians and Information Professionals. 

•  First of all, congratulations on winning ALA’s 2011 Beta Phi Mu Award for distinguished service to education in librarianship this past May. Could you describe some experiences that might help others that were pivotal in your becoming an award-winning teacher of teachers?

One of my first pivotal experiences was teaching library science in Peace Corps (Tunisia), which lighted my teaching fire. That realization led me to pursue a doctorate in Adult Education so I would have the knowledge and skills to instruct adult pre-service librarians. I think my own librarian experiences informed my teaching, and gave me “street cred.” My writing has also informed my teaching as I have researched a variety of topics, and I have also co-authored with my students. Certainly, coordinating a library science program has enabled me to see the big picture: from developing and expanding a cohesive library program to assessing its effectiveness. Hiring and working with program lecturers has also sharpened my expertise. Teaching online, both with self-grown Web pages and course management systems, provided another dimension for instructional design and delivery. And, of course, I learn from my students every day.

•  Your newest book Instructional Design for Librarians and Information Professionals is on press as we speak. What is its focus, and why did you decide to write this book?

Increasingly, librarians are asked to instruct beyond just-in-time reference help. Even school librarians, who typically have a teaching credential, receive little formal training on designing and implementing library instruction (i.e., information and digital literacies), particularly in a systematic way or in light of virtual education. This book provides such a focus. Because I have worked in all types of libraries, I have experienced a wide range of informational needs, and know what kinds of instruction are appropriate for different clientele and situations.

•  What is technology-transformed instruction and how do librarians implement it?

Technology has the potential to change instruction significantly, not just play an additive role. Of course, teaching with technology involves knowing ABOUT technology, and requires that libraries match technology tools and strategies to the content and learning objective, as well as the learner. The transformative part of technology can apply to both the teaching and learning experience as the roles of the parties involve change from a hierarchical one to a collegial and joint exploratory one. In addition, technology facilitates generative knowledge — that is knowledge production; the learner is no longer just a consumer of information but also a producer of it. Lastly, technology facilitates the dissemination of this new knowledge so that others can be informed by it.

•  As you have focused on teacher librarians and library media curriculum over the years, what have you found to be the new or perennial challenges of the profession?

Obviously, technology continues to change and grow, which impacts both the nature of information itself as well as its “carrier” or “container.” That, in turn, impacts how librarians locate, evaluate, select, and organize recorded information. Librarianship or library service has become more participatory, which I laud. Especially with the Internet, collection development has a whole new meaning as access sometimes outweighs ownership. The library is no longer a closed universe controlled by the librarian; it is a portal to information, guided by the librarian/information professional.  Librarians now share their expertise more, such as teaching users how to evaluate information more than ever; their instructional role has increased. Likewise, with the advent of Web 2.0, even in the cataloging arena, librarians are sharing that intellectual space with users – who can complement subject headings with personal tags and contribute to the collection with their own products more easily. Other issues deal with diversity and globalization: the increasing variety of users and their needs, and their interaction; the world really is getting smaller. More than ever before, librarians need to address the information needs of people with physical and mental differences as well as linguistically different people. I think that librarians also have to assume a greater leadership and advocacy role than ever before; having the fireman attitude of just being ready when the user wants help is no longer enough – librarians have to seek opportunities to reach out to their communities (both physical and virtual) and pro-actively provide information and services that respond to those communities’ needs and wants. Libraries and librarians can no longer to be taken for granted, particularly in light of the many options for gaining information and engaging in leisure activities. More than ever before, librarians have to show their value, including conducting research and analyzing data to evaluate and improve their programs. Nevertheless, libraries continue their core roles of collection development and physical/intellectual access in light of the community, and being socially responsible in the process.

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Author Betsy Diamant-Cohen discusses her award-winning Mother Goose on the Loose program in the University of Baltimore Magazine. Click here to read the article.

Click here for more information on Betsy Diamant-Cohen and her books.

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If your reference department has gotten more questions recently about foreclosed home mortgages, it is probably not alone in this economic climate. Here are some of the best sources to help answer just such legal questions. These secondary sources of legal information are both free and reliable.

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Finding the Answers to Legal Questions: A How-To-Do-It Manual by Viriginia Tucker and Marc Lampson.

Secondary Sources Generally

Secondary sources are often the best place for the novice researcher to start in finding legal information. Primary law consists of enacted law (constitutions, statutes, ordinances), case law, and regulations, but often it is difficult to get an overall sense of what “the law” is about a specific topic, especially if you merely compile several pieces of primary law. A secondary source will summarize, synthesize, and explain seemingly disparate pieces of primary law for you; it can also be a valuable starting place to learn about the terminology of an area of law.

A secondary source is to the law what a movie review is to the movie. A movie reviewer will summarize a movie and explain whether he or she liked it or not, but it is often best to go see the movie yourself. Similarly, a secondary source will tell you about the law, what the law says, and sometimes why the law is “good” or “bad,” but a secondary source is not the law itself. Secondary sources therefore are often not the final step in legal research because usually secondary sources will lead the researcher to the next step, finding statutes, cases, and regulations that constitute the law itself.

…

Secondary Sources: Free Online Access

The web has made great strides in access to free legal information over the past decade, but access to the secondary sources discussed is still nonexistent. You will not find legal encyclopedias, ALRs, Restatements, or authoritative practice and form books on the web. You will find many sites selling “legal forms.” You will find lots of law firm websites offering various levels of advice.

You may also find all sorts of “commentary” on “the law” looking like secondary sources. Extreme caution should be exercised in relying on such commentary. As the famous New Yorker cartoon advises, “No one on the Internet knows that you’re a dog.” Or an idiot with an ax to grind.

However, at least two exceptions to this exist. The first one is the Cornell Legal Information Institute. In this book we will mention this resource many times. It provides both primary law and, to a much more limited extent, commentary on that law. In particular, it has a “Law About” function that can get you to explanations “about the law” of specific topics. You can access it at http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex.

The other exception to the rule that no reliable secondary legal sources exist on the web is the University Law Review Project. Its name is self-explanatory. It provides the researcher with free access to one of the chief types of secondary sources, law reviews.

-Excerpted from: Finding the Answers to Legal Questions: A How-To-Do-It Manual, pages 13 & 21. ©2010 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery.

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Cloud computing can save your library time and money by enabling convenient, on-demand network access to resources like servers and applications. Libraries that take advantage of the cloud have fewer IT headaches because data centers provide continuous updates and mobility that standard computing cannot easily provide, which means less time and energy spent on software, and more time and energy to devote to the library’s day to day mission and services. In Getting Started with Cloud Computing, leading LITA experts demystify language, deflate hype, and provide library-specific examples of real-world success you can emulate to guarantee efficiency and savings. Among several features, this book helps you select data access and file sharing services, build digital repositories, and utilize other cloud computing applications in your library. Together, you and the cloud can save time and money, and build the information destination your patrons will love.

About the Editors

Heather Lea Moulaison is Assistant Professor in the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri. Dr. Moulaison studies web technologies as they pertain to organization of information, and has presented at numerous international, national, and local conferences.

Edward M. Corrado is Director of Library Technology at Binghamton University, Binghamton,New York. Corrado has written articles presented at multiple conferences on various library technology topics.His research interests include cloudcomputing, Open Source Software in libraries, social software in libraries and the role of libraries in Democracy 2.0.

Click to learn more about Getting Started with Cloud Computing.

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Literacy is the cornerstone of any school program. School librarians looking for effective tools for teaching students the skills necessary for their development will find everything they need in Developing 21st Century Literacies: A K-12 School Library Curriculum Blueprint with Sample Lessons. From the press release:

“August 11, 2011 (New York, NY) —Developing 21^st Century Literacies: A K-12 School Library Curriculum Blueprint with Sample Lessons, to be published by Neal-Schuman Publishers on September 30, 2011, is an authoritative guide that gives school librarians a blueprint for teaching the skills students must master to function effectively as learners and citizens.

Experienced library coordinators Mary Jo Langhorne and Denise Rehmke, along with numerous active and retired teacher-librarians from the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD), have created a stellar curriculum blueprint based on the realities of schools today. “

Click here for a sample lesson and table of contents.

Click here to find out more about this and other titles in Neal-Schuman’s press release database.

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