Scholarly Information Practices

Bernie Sloan noted this publication: "Scholarly Information Practices in the Online Environment: Themes from the Literature and Implications for Library Service Development". In the conclusions "The question facing service developers... is not what services need to be offered digitally, but rather how do we process in the long term to move all services to an e-research platform." (p. 34). This is a good fit with the talk that Rush Miller gave at the USF Tampa Library this week. He also pointed out that the future of libraries is digital. (He used some of the same material from the Slideshare posting at http://www.slideshare.net/chris1tina/beyond-merely-surviving ) Miller seemed particularly adamant that we are on the move to electronic formats mostly. It does seem to me that we are getting there, but... why do we still have a shelving crisis at the Tampa Library at the end of every semester? What are our users doing with the books? Using the books as doorstops? Could we eliminate the shelving crunch by buying everyone a Kindle? ;)

Google announcements - personal search, visual search, realtime web, etc.

Joel Foner has gathered together links to recent Google announcements: Google visual search, personalized search for everyone, realtime web. He is holding a discussion about the potential impact of these new features on Second Life. Personalized search allows users to opt out. Search history is kept for 180 days though users can delete the history at any time. Joel points out to a write up by Danny Sullivan Google Now Personalizes Everyone's Search Results. Do we enjoy getting customized results or are we concerned that our search engines know our preferences? Or is it both? When it comes to real time search results, will we get the latest breaking news - or the latest breaking rumors? I know this is not an earth-shattering incident: I woke up this morning to the news that a woman was taken from Tiger Woods home to a hospital (December 8, 2009.8AM EST) I'm getting updates from a bonafide news source or two - and comments from Twitter. Twitter reports include woman already released from the hospital - and that the woman was Woods' mother-in-law. (8:06 AM EST). Most tweets are still only reporting that a woman was taken from Tiger Woods' home to the hospital. Hmmm... another way to teach students information literacy skills? Maybe the question is when does realtime information actually become substantiated.

Emarking - including audio comments

For those instructors giving out those traditional "research paper" assignments: What about using electronic grading assistants such as this emarking tool? http://www.baker-evans.com/community/mod/resource/view.php?id=365 I might have to try this one! It works with Word and provides the ability to add audio comments as well as re-use phrases, etc. The trial is free. In the past, I've tried Phrase Express ( http://www.phraseexpress.com/ ) suggested by Johanna Tunon. I've used the even more low-tech option of a Word document with some phrases that I can copy and paste. Some faculty object to the idea of using canned phrases - we should tailor our remarks for each student. I agree that we should do that - but pointing out grammar mistakes or citation errors...I'd rather have a set of stock phrases that will save me keystrokes for those kinds of corrections. What do you think? Know about other software that assists in marking papers?

Information literacy and college students in a digital age

Project Information Literacy has put out a progress report "How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age." (December 1, 2009). http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2009_Year1Report_12_2009.pdf The report is based on a sample of over two thousand responses from a number of universities. Some of the findings: Students turn to course readings first for assignments. They use Google and Wikipedia for everyday information. They value online scholarly research materials available via their libraries. Students consult their instructors first when they need information on how to proceed with a research project. Few students rely on librarians though librarians seem to be more important early in a student's academic career. On interesting statement on page 20: "All in all, the librarian approach is one based by thoroughness, while the student approach is based on efficiency. To that end, librarians suggest using scholarly resources, while many students in our study used a wide range of resources that deliver an abundance of results early on, whether they are scholarly, or not." What does this mean for librarians? Along with other findings on the ways that students conduct their research, the authors make some recommendations for faculty, administrators, and librarians. Among the recommendations: "Librarians should systematically (not just anecdotally) examine the services they provide... Questions should be addressed about how and why services and resources are used - not only how often... (p. 36).

Google Scholar: Searching court cases

As of November 17, 2009, there's a new radio button to click on Google Scholar: Google Scholar has added the ability to search for legal cases - U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts via Google Scholar. Handy for sure! See http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/finding-laws-that-govern-us.html for more information.

Phil Agre

Dr. McCook pointed out the recent story on NPR about Phil Agre's disappearance.  Agre, who is reported to suffer from bipolar disorder, had been at the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. He abandoned his job and apartment last year. (Unlike the artificial experiment reported in Wired "Writer Evan Raliff tried to vanish: Here's what happened" where it appears that Ratliff wasn't able to actually break ties with everyone, Agre seems  to have actually disappeared.)   I was an avid subscriber to Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE) and a fan of Agre's writings.  If you want to read only one of this pieces, read Advice for undergraduates considering graduate school .  Then... don't stop, keep reading.

Parents believe that information literacy is crucial

Good news for all of us who have been touting information literacy! From Project Tomorrow's Learning in the 21st Century: Parents’ Perspectives, Parents’ Priorities - a survey of more than 21,000 parents:  

"Parents believe that information literacy is crucial to their children’s success. Success in the 21st
century will depend on their children’s ability to conduct research, find, organize, and summarize data
and develop media literacy skills and to a large extent, students agree with them, though not quite
at the same level. Students in grades 6th-12th were more likely to believe that they will learn critical
media literacy skills on their own by using technology (40 percent) while parents (68 percent) believe
that students will develop skills by using technology as part of their regular classes."

Parents are also interested in the use of mobile technology, online textbooks, online organizational tools, smart boards in the classroom - and more.  See Education in the 21st Century