Google scholar

Hey Everyone,
I've been looking at Google Scholar a bit lately, and I just wondered what others thought of it. I have found some of the results are links to articles in subscription databases which are not very helpful. What have your experiences been like? Should we be teaching ATEC students about Google Scholar? Thanks.

What's In A Name?

Howdy. I encountered a little controversy today during a Faculty Development Day presentation when referring to "teaching faculty" and "librarians" in an exercise on perceptions. Where I was trying to go was that while "teaching faculty" and "librarians" have different roles (and maybe different perceptions of each other and info lit)in the educational team of an institution, these differences can used as a positive when collaborating on research/ library assignments etc.

One person took offense at my terms, essentially arguing that it was divisive. And no, it wasn't a librarian. In retrospect, I would have used the terms "classroom faculty" and "library faculty". But I would definitely do the exercise again as I do believe that we all bring a little something different to the educational table, and that can make for an exciting collaborative environment and educational opportunities for our students. Any thoughts on this?

LISNews.com | Why Do I Need So Much School When I Have Google?

LISNews points out today's Baldo comic strip. And, yes it is info lit related!

LISNews.com | Why Do I Need So Much School When I Have Google?

Instruction Session Fun!

In a completely unrelated meeting today Jennifer, Pete and I got to talking about fun or goofy stuff that we do during (or before) instruction sessions to try to get and keep the students attention. I said I would post a link to the Pre-Show Entertainment that I loop before some sessions. It's a timed PowerPoint with stuff, about the library, campus activities etc.

Pre-Show Entertainment (PPT)

The timings work if it opens in a browser window, just let it sit there.

Anyone wanna share any other fun stuff they do?

Ideas For Library/ Information Assignments

Michael Lorenzen at the Information Literacy Land of Confusion posted about this web page from the Libraries of the Memorial University of Newfoundland. It is a great guide designed to assist faculty in creating research assignments and provides suggestions about types of assignments other than the traditional research paper. Very nice!

In poking around their web site out of my love of all things Canadian (including curling and The Sadies from Toronto, Ontario Canada) I saw that the Queen Elizabeth II Library has a cool pilot program called "Roaming Librarians" where some of their reference librarians provide reference services at regularly schedule times around campus using wireless technology. It will be interesting to see if it works out and gets extended. Any thoughts about providing wireless reference services outside the traditional library setting?

Wilder Article Update

In case anyone hasn't read it yet, the Stanley Wilder article "Information Literacy Literacy Makes All The Wrong Assumptions"* from the Chronicle of Higher Education has been released from embargo purgatory and is now available in FT from Research Library.

*Link works for authenticated GPC users only.

Teaching Students to Swim in the Online Sea

This is an interesting article* from yesterday's New York Times by Geoffery Nunberg that hits on the need for some sort of information literacy instruction, especially in relation to evaluating Internet sources. He references a couple of the Pew Project surveys that Jennifer posted a couple of weeks ago.

A couple of interesting points for discussion: he mentions the "paradox" of librarians taking the lead in Info Lit instruction since most people assumed that there wouldn't be a need for libraries in the "digital age". And this intersting quote:

"More important,leaving information literacy to librarians alone suggests a failure to understand the scope of the problem. Part of it lies in the word ''literacy'' itself. No other language has a word that covers such a broad swath of territory, from reading and writing skills, to a familiarity with culture, to elementary competence in subjects like math or geography. To many, ''information literacy'' suggests a set of basic ABC's that can be consigned to Information 101."

It is kind of a loaded statement but I really do think that including the word "literacy" in describing our efforts in these areas is a misnomer. I can't remember the source, but someone suggested the term "information fluency" in an article a while back. I like that one better. But you can really call it "Fred" as long as the points get across.

*Registration required or article available through LexisNexis Academic.

Salon.com Technology | From ivory tower to academic sweatshop

I just perused this interesting article from salon.com calledFrom ivory tower to academic sweatshop* by Alex Wright. It gives a very interesting overview of the resurgence of distance learning and its effect of academia in general. Not specifically info lit, but very interesting as we move towards more and more online delivery of library services.

*Subscription or "day pass" (look at an ad for a minute or less) required to view article.