Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Taking Root: Librarians Help New Forestry Students Create A Learning Community, Erica Lopez, Tina Oswald

Librarian and Staff Publications

Librarians have studied and discussed library anxiety ever since Constance Mellon coined the term in 1986. While it may be challenging for librarians to imagine any anxiety about coming into a library and using the available resources, students experience a multitude of stressors as they embark on their college journey. Many are taking college-level courses for the first time. Some might have a roommate they know, or not. (Sometimes the ones you know are a bigger problem than the ones you do not.) Some may be juggling a full course load with work or family responsibilities. Many are on their …

Rethinking Information Literacy Assessment: Relevance, Reliability, And Validity Of Constructs And Measures, Melissa Clark

Librarian and Staff Publications

Information literacy assessment has traditionally approached student learning as the acquisition of declarative knowledge, which can be measured with easily-graded true/false and multiple-choice questions. Although such measures may prove highly reliable in test-retest situations, they are not valid measures of knowledge or learning, because they fail to test procedural and conditional knowledge, both of which are essential for students to reach the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. This omission can partially explain the disconnect between scores on tests of information literacy and students’ continued poor performance on research assignments. Furthermore, information literacy assessment has failed to address the social and …

Fostering Creative Thinking And Reflexive Evaluation In Searching: Instructional Scaffolding And The Zone Of Proximal Development In Information Literacy Acquisition, Melissa Clark

Librarian and Staff Publications

Searching for information, which is not as easy as many students believe, requires creativity, formative evaluation, and persistence. Cultivating proficient and expert searches requires more than the vicarious and enactive experiences described by Bandura1 that are frequently employed in traditional library instruction: students need to be supported and coached in working in their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which stimulates learning.2

Final Performance Report, Neh Grant No. Pg-51734-12, Disaster And Preservation Planning Workshops, May 14-17, 2012, Kyle Ainsworth

Librarian and Staff Publications

Report on the strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures of the 4-day Disaster and Preservation Planning Workshops held at the R.W. Steen Library May 14-17, 2012.

Traditional Chinese Philosophy In China’S Modern International Relations, R Philip Reynolds

Librarian and Staff Publications

Since gaining power in 2002 Hu Jianto and long-time ally Premier Wen Jiabao have been digging deep into the Communist-Chinese canon as well as ancient Confucian, and other traditional philosophical themes and practices to articulate President Hu Jianto’s foreign policy message “the Three Harmonies”. This message of the peaceful rise of China rang hollow in the ears of many politicians and analysts. (Lam 2006) Was Hu Jianto a leader who based his foreign policy on traditional Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism, or is China’s foreign relations ; as Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro put it “driven by nationalist sentiment, a …

The Librarian As Hacker, Getting More From Google, R Philip Reynolds

Librarian and Staff Publications

This paper will cover four areas. First it will discuss the research habits of search engine users and some of the problems with these habits. Then it will discuss librarians' use of search engines. Here we encounter the real question: Do we do much better? Can we use a search engines to their full potential? When needed, can we hack an engine to make it perform beyond its intended function? Can we use a clever workaround to solve a problem? Or are we on a level playing field with our patrons once we get outside traditional database searching? Google currently …

Utilizing Technology, Lani Draper, Marthea Turnage

Librarian and Staff Publications

Technology and library instruction are viewed from every angle in this chapter. It examines the technology skills of students on, in particular, distance education students. The chapter looks at how librarians are incorporating technology into library instruction at a distance and examines the newest technology tools available for distance instruction.

Your Brain On Information Literacy: Acrl Immersion ’05, Carol Scamman, Robin Kinder, Priscilla Coulter

Librarian and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Making The Connection: Library Services For Distance Education And Off-Campus Students., Marthea J. Turnage, Randy Mcdonald

Librarian and Staff Publications

Librarians have long recognized that the needs of distance and off-campus students differ from those of traditional, on-campus students. In the last decade, librarians have adapted to the challenges posed by an increasingly physically isolated yet electronically linked community of education stakeholders.

Building User-Oriented Web Sites For Archives, R Philip Reynolds

Librarian and Staff Publications

For years the banking industry did not consider electronic services for customers as "real" business. Then in 1994, a study entitled "New Paradigms in Retail Banking" by the Bank Administration Institute (BAI) and First Manhattan Consulting Group revealed that more than half of all retail banking transactions occurred by way of an electronic medium. People were no longer going to their branch offices, but conducted business with their phones, PCs, and ATM cards. Suddenly banking executives stopped asking "Why should we offer electronic services?" and started asking "Why aren't we offering electronic services?" This same revolution in thought is inevitable …

Finding Your Genealogical Roots: Research Centers In Springfield Illinois, R Philip Reynolds

Librarian and Staff Publications

As the Capital of Illinois, Springfield is the home of a wide variety of genealogical collections. Illinois land offered as a bounty for service in the war of 1812 Stimulated early settlement. Farmers from overworked Eastern states migrated to the rich prairies of Illinois. Later immigrants from Europe reached Illinois through lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Following the Civil War, Illinois became the starting point for many in the westward migration.

Visitors to Springfield can find records left by their ancestors whether they setled in Illinois or used it as a jumping off point to the West. Research Facilities …

Access To Federal Documents: An Information Age Approach., Marthea J. Turnage, Kayce Halstead

Librarian and Staff Publications

Government documents are often underutilized primary source of information. However, with the widespread availability of computers in libraries and the virtual explosion of electronic products and information, there are now other choices to access government documents in libraries.

Online Catalogs And User Education, Marthea J. Turnage

Librarian and Staff Publications

Stephen F. Austin State University library designs a user education program in conjunction with the academic assistance services.

Online Catalogs And User Education, Marthea J. Turnage

Librarian and Staff Publications

Online catalogs affect library instruction in a positive way. Comparison of features in each online catalog supplied by the current vendors is discussed.