Indicator: 5.B.2 Library and information resources and services contribute to developing the ability of students, faculty, and staff to use the resources independently and effectively.
Before commenting on this indicator, view the following items to gain an understanding of what the library does do to help users develop the skills to use the library and its resources.
1. Direct instruction of students, with stated learning outcomes, integrated into the curriculum by request of faculty. On average, each semester over 25% of students (FTE) receive classroom integrated library instruction.
2. Students instructed and assisted at the Reference/Front Desk.
3. Online orientation for students and for faculty on library resources and services.
4. Library website, especially homepage, using the library, and information for faculty.
5. Webpages of research tips, course specific guides, database tutorials and Book a Librarian service.
6. Participation in new student orientation.
7. Library brochure and various handouts on using databases or organizing research.
Some of the things that we are not doing or are not doing well are:
Could offer more formalized research instruction in the form of a class or workshops.(am working with Gen Ed. Dept. on this)
1. Signage in the library directing users to resources and services could be improved.
2. We have only conducted a few workshops for faculty over the past several years.
3. Brochure needs updating and improvement.
4. Need more handouts and need to organize and display them more attractively.
5. No designated computer for the catalog.
6. Participation in adjunct orientation has been suspended.
7. More ideas . . . .?
6 comments:
I'm not sure this fits here, but I would like to see on the webpage, a brief, or perhaps, not so brief explanation about how best to use the catalog. For example, what is a key word and when would one use it? What kinds of search terms work best? Unless I know author or title, I'm always a little lost in the searching of the catalog and what the results sometimes mean.
This exactly fits here! Oh how I wish our catalog was as user friendly as Amazon! Or even as some others that are on the market, but alas. I will give some thought to how we can improve this.
That being said, there is a HELP button a few places on the search screen that does give the type of information you are suggesting, or at least to a certain extent. For example, under HELP it gives this information about a keyword search:
Keyword Search
A keyword search looks for words located anywhere in a record. For example, a keyword search on the word "computers" would return all of the items that contain the word computers in the title, author, subject heading, table of contents, or even the publisher field. Results are returned ranked in order of relevance. Select a title to see more specific information about an item.
To perform a Keyword Search:
From the "Select Library" box choose the library catalog that you want to search, OR select All Libraries to search the catalogs of all libraries. If you make no selection, your search will be limited to items owned by the UM-Helena Library.
In the "Search by" box select Keyword.
Type the word(s) you want to search for in the "Search for" box.
Use quotation marks to search for specific phrases: "grizzly bear"
Use a plus sign (+) before a term to indicate an essential term: +montana
Use an exclamation point (!) to exclude terms: montana !joe
Use a question mark (?) with partial words to find variant endings: manage?
Use an asterisk (*) before a term to indicate an important term: *internet
Click the "Set Limits" button if you want to limit your keyword search based on other criteria.
Click on the drop down menu to select the number of records you want to display on a page.
Click the Search button to begin your search. Click the Clear button to clear the search page.
At our meeting yesterday an interesting comment was made, something to the effect “I always have trouble using libraries, that’s why I love PubMed.” In the interest of time, I did not clarify that indeed when you use PubMed you are using at least one and probably two libraries, including ours!
PubMed is a product of the National Library of Medicine and is a sophisticated indexing tool for identifying biomedical literature. It currently has about 17,000,000 citations and abstracts of articles. However it does not contain the full-text of articles. When you follow a link for the complete article, you are leaving PubMed and are traveling to the publisher’s website. A very small fraction of publishers provide free access to their articles. If you are accessing articles, it is probably because the library of your associated institution (MSU or UM-Helena) has purchased access to these articles and has constructed what to you is easy and seamless retrieval of this information, so seamless that you do not even know your library is involved in providing this access! Sometimes we are PR victims of our own success.
The PubMed interface is easy to use and is effective in identifying articles. Still, it takes a skilled searcher to effectively identify all the pertinent literature. “For comprehensive, optimal searching in PubMed, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of its core component, MEDLINE, and especially of the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) controlled vocabulary used to index MEDLINE articles. Counterintuitively, a search that returns thousands of articles is not guaranteed to be comprehensive.” (Wikipedia)
I totally understand the frustration that was expressed during our meeting in using our catalog to locate books and other items that are physically located on our shelves, as these records are overwhelmed by the much more extensive electronic /virtual resources that are also indexed in our catalog. I will explore the possibility of limiting a search to just these items. However, I think this bothers our students less than it does those of us who came of age pre-electronic resources. When students search, I do not see them distinguishing between wanting one format or another. If fact they are usually delighted to have the catalog leads them to various electronic resources.
A computer programmer once told me the maxim that one can have ease of use/simplicity or power/complexity in searching, but not both. Amazon, Google, and other such tools have given us ease of use, and much to their credit, quite a bit of power. However, they are not trying to organize and provide access to all of mankind’s recorded thoughts and images. Think about the enormity of that. This is what libraries try to do. And that takes a powerful, not a simple, search tool. And it takes skill to use a powerful tool.
Just because a person can use a pencil or a keyboard does not mean they can write effectively, and teaching them a few tricks will not transform their writing. It takes practice and learning, either through being instructed or self taught. I would say the same is true of research skills. Just because you give someone access to catalogs and databases does not mean they will be effective searchers. This too takes practice and learning, either through instruction or self-teaching. The explosion of access to information and the rapid evolution of searching tools have made this even more challenging. And this I think is the weakest part of our library services, that we do not offer comprehensive instruction to students, faculty, and staff on developing their ability to research effectively and independently. We need a class on Research Skills/Methods.
"We need a class on research skills and methods." Exactly.
We can be grateful that our librarian and staff can help us with our searches and do this well and with graciousness and patience. Often we forget that our best library resource is the presence of good and learned people.
At our meeting on Friday it was pointed out that the library website does not directly address services to staff. In response to this observation, I have created a new webpage Services for Staff, including an online orientation to the Library for staff.
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