Taught LIS (Library & Information Skills) sessions have changed beyond all recognition, certainly since I entered the profession almost 20 years ago. It is interesting however, as we seem almost to have come full circle in some respects, and spend a good deal of our time discussing the importance of using 'trusted' sources of Web-based information as we are finding that students prefer quick wins within their research, immediacy of access for example, and often this can be at the expense of 'quality' in terms of the resources used. Investing time in research is another area where we are discussing at length with our learners, the need to use full-text databases and subject gateways as a starting point for research, not a general purpose search engine.
With Web 2.0 has come the belief, albeit a misguided one, that all information can be found using a general purpose search engine. Whilst they have their place, they have given rise to this belief that all information can be found therein, and this makes it much more difficult to impress upon our learners the need to invest time in their research.
With this in mind, we have implemented a LIS session which looks at 'deep web' searching and outlines the limitations of general purpose search engines. It also introduces students to alerts/contents page services and resources such as COPAC. New resources such as the JISC FE e-Book collection has certainly helped to coax students away from Google et al., and the implementation of a federated search tool has also received positive feedback from students as they can search all of the LRCs e-resource simultaneously from a relatively user-friendly interface. That said, we are constantly seeking new and innovative ways of delivering information and our services to learners and teaching staff. This is definately a work in progress and we can't become complacent, given the new and emerging technologies that are on the horizon and the speed with which they are adopted by current and next generation learners.
As noted by Williams et al. (2008):
many librarians have started to experiment with social software in an attempt to get closer to their users. They have a problem. Although research libraries spend millions of pounds providing seamless desktop access to expensive copyrighted electronic content - journals, books and monographs - much of this is news to their users. Either they do not know that the library provides this material, or they get it, possibly via Google, and assume it is 'free' (p. 177).
It is clear that there is work to be done if we are to ensure that the current and next generation of learners leave our educational establishments with the necessary digital information literacy skills required to naviagate sources of good quality electronic information.
References
Williams, P., Rowlands, I. and Fieldhouse, M. (2008) The 'Google Generation' - myths and realities about young people's digital information behaviour. In: Nicholas, D. and Rowlands, I. (eds.) Digital consumers: reshaping the information professional. London: Facet.
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Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI liked your blog post and I'm interested in learning more about your LIS session.
I run Deep Web Technologies, a company that provides Federated Search solutions that search content in the Deep Web.
I have given presentations on "Taking the Library Back from Google" that I could share with you.
Please contact me at abe@deepwebtech.com
Many thanks for your comment. I think federated searching is the key, but we have quite a selling job to do, as we have to impress upon our learners the value of investing time within their research. That said, federated searching does go some way towards easing the process considerably, particularly for novice users who are unfamiliar with the complex search interfaces of many indexing, abstracting & full text services.
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very pertinent area of discussion. I think there is a point to be made about understanding the habits of learners and working with these, rather than against them. Williams in the comment you have given above talks about copyrighted electronic content - such content is not only available through the institutional gateways, it is also accessible through general purpose search engines, for example open source materials.
It is to the learner's advantage to be able to use those materials and to know how to access these, if for no other reason, for the fact that once they leave university/ college, these learners would still be able to access and search for content without the need for institutional log in.
Just a thought but my feeling is that a mixture of skills should be taught, and these should include deep searching with general purpose search engines.