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Monthly Archives: December 2009
University of Windsor’s Analysis of Library Site Traffic
An interesting presentation and conversation thread was started on FriendFeed today by Mita Williams about the analysis she and her colleagues have done of the traffic on their library’s website.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged library web site design, Library web sites
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Exemplary Library Web Sites
I am interested in collecting information about library web sites that we consider exemplary for their design and functionality. Please comment on this posting with URLs to sites that have an outstanding overall design or pages that you think handle a function well.
Posted in Uncategorized
9 Comments
Principles for Library Web Site Redesign
I would like to incorporate general principles for the library web site redesign into the project charter. Please comment on this post with any principles that you would like to recommend. For example, “Every member of the library staff should potentially be able to edit content.” Such a principle would have implications for the content management system we adopt as well as the work flow for the management of the site.
Posted in Uncategorized
7 Comments
Usability Testing LibGuides
The libraries at the University of Michigan just released a report about usability issues with LibGuides that is worth taking a look at.
Swem Library’s Guide to Doing Research
The Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary has put together a nice collection of web pages designed to help students get started with research. I like the way that many of the pages are designed for browsing and are frequently free of large blocks of text.
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Tagged Library web sites, Research guides
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David Weinberger on What Information Was
At the Berkman Center for Internet and Society this fall, David Weinberger gave an interesting presentation titled “What Information Was” in which he sketched out some ideas that might be useful for students in our credit courses. You can watch the video, taped at the center’s “Berkman Luncheon Series,” here.
Weinberg, David. “What Information Was.” 6 October 2009. Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Web.
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Struggling to Define Information Literacy
There have been a couple of interesting discussions online lately about how to define information literacy. A thread started in FriendFeed by Iris Jastram from Carleton College got the ball rolling and then led to a couple of notable blog posts.
Steve Lawson from Colorado College then wrote a nice post on his blog, See Also…, which offered a great description of what students are supposed to be doing with multiple viewpoints they should be searching for when doing research:
We often talk about finding sources so the student can “join the conversation,” and I sometimes say they need to find multiple viewpoints they can get in their papers “and make ‘em fight.” In that case it seems less like finding “information” than it seems like finding “dinner party guests” or “sparring partners.”
Iris Jastram then wrote a post on her blog, Pegasus Librarian, in which she provided a link to the PDF of a nice handout she and her colleagues at Carleton put together: “Finding, Evaulating, and Ethically Using Information: Information Literacy in the A&I Seminars.”
Jastram, Iris. “What Is Information Literacy Anyway?” Pegasus Librarian, 7 December 2009. Web.
Lawson, Steve. “Information Literacy: A Non-Definition.” See Also…, 7 December 2009. Web.
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Tagged Information literacy
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Books Cited in Wikipedia Articles
Tim Spalding, the founder and developer of LibraryThing, recently analyzed what books were cited in Wikipedia entries and came up with a list of the top 100 most cited books, which seem heavy on military history and pop culture.
Spalding, Tim. “The Books of Wikipedia.” The LibraryThing Blog, 22 November 2009. Web.
Essential Reading in Information Literacy
Karen Schneider’s blog post, “Must-Read Project Information Literacy Report,” alerted me yesterday to what appears to be a really great document, “Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age” (PDF, 42 pages). I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but I am intrigued by the findings of the survey conducted by the study’s authors from Project Information Literacy:
1. Many students in the sample reported being curious, engaged, and motivated at
the beginning of the course-related and everyday life research process.
Respondentsʼ need for big-picture context, or background about a topic, was the
trigger for beginning course-related (65%) or everyday life research (63%).
2. Almost every student in the sample turned to course readings—not Google—first
for course-related research assignments. Likewise, Google and Wikipedia were
the go-to sites for everyday life research for nearly every respondent.
3. Librarians were tremendously underutilized by students. Eight
out of 10 of the respondents reported rarely, if ever, turning to
librarians for help with course-related research assignments.
4. Nine out of 10 students in the sample turned to libraries for
certain online scholarly research databases (such as those
provided by EBSCO, JSTOR, or ProQuest) for conducting
course-related research, valuing the resources for credible
content, in-depth information, and the ability to meet instructorsʼ
expectations.
5. Even though it was librarians who initially informed students
about using online scholarly research databases during freshmen training
sessions, students in follow-up interviews reported turning to instructors as
valued research coaches, as they advanced through the higher levels of their
education.
6. The reasons why students procrastinate are no longer driven by the same pre-
Internet fears of failure and a lack of confidence that once were part of the
college scene in the 1980s. Instead, we found that most of the digital natives in
the sample (40%) tended to delay work on assignments as they juggled their
needs to meet competing course demands from other classes.
1. Many students in the sample reported being curious, engaged, and motivated at the beginning of the course-related and everyday life research process. Respondentsʼ need for big-picture context, or background about a topic, was the trigger for beginning course-related (65%) or everyday life research (63%).
2. Almost every student in the sample turned to course readings—not Google—first for course-related research assignments. Likewise, Google and Wikipedia were the go-to sites for everyday life research for nearly every respondent.
3. Librarians were tremendously underutilized by students. Eight out of 10 of the respondents reported rarely, if ever, turning to librarians for help with course-related research assignments.
4. Nine out of 10 students in the sample turned to libraries for certain online scholarly research databases (such as those provided by EBSCO, JSTOR, or ProQuest) for conducting course-related research, valuing the resources for credible content, in-depth information, and the ability to meet instructorsʼ expectations.
5. Even though it was librarians who initially informed students about using online scholarly research databases during freshmen training sessions, students in follow-up interviews reported turning to instructors as valued research coaches, as they advanced through the higher levels of their education.
6. The reasons why students procrastinate are no longer driven by the same pre-Internet fears of failure and a lack of confidence that once were part of the college scene in the 1980s. Instead, we found that most of the digital natives in the sample (40%) tended to delay work on assignments as they juggled their needs to meet competing course demands from other classes.
Head, Alison J. and Michael B. Eisenberg. “Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age.” Project Information Literacy. 1 December 2009. Web.
Schneider, Karen. “Must-Read Project Information Literacy Report.” Free Range Librarian, 1 December 2009. Web.
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Tagged Information literacy, Information seeking, Reports
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