Blog Reflection #8

Outside of my other formal library courses, I can't remember a basics of "how to use the library" since high school. This might have been part of basic freshman orientation, but since I was a half time senior high student and half time in college my senior year (in 1989-1990, when that was not a commonplace practice) I wound up bypassing a lot of the traditional freshman stuff. A lot of what I knew before starting the courses here was actually self taught by trial and error. I have definitely learned extra tips and tricks by taking the classes that I have done here.

The library classes have relied on a lot of online guides so I guess that's the only real, at least relatively recent, experience I can compare to. If written well, these can be a great help. Interactive simulations can help too but they are difficult to program and realistically a library wouldn't do that on its own. An audio only walkthrough (such as podcast) or a video tutorial that users can watch would be realistic for a local library to do and could be useful. I know that the IT department at the community college where my Dad works in Washington State did this for basic IT things. He made a video on simple ways to diagnose basic printer errors before calling the department, and other people in IT did different ones. Similar things could be done for library.

My belief is that libraries are just part of the great innudation of information available. A good library resource instruction class cannot help but discuss search engines, Wikipedia, etc if for no other reason than to show why library sources are superior. However, as we've said before, search engines and metacrawlers can have some validity if people are taught to "search smart" - and that's where library technicans and librarians can come in.

I imagine many public libraries have seen more traffic from the unemployed so I will explore that. Types of instruction a library could do is on resources for resume writing, smart job searching (especially since many companies only take online applications that could be done at library computers), training for using resources for career planning whether fresh out of school or changing fields, and similar offerings.

Blog Reflection #7

The first challenge comes from a patron level's comfort level with general computer usage. If they are not comfortable with computer or web browser basics, this instruction may be additional but is not our primary focus. An issue with our hypothetical situation is that no topic is specified. Since government websites are mentioned something that would reasonably have these types of resources as a potential reference, either statistics or things specifically about government.

I would recommend visits to sites in this order:


f ) Encyclopedia Brittanica.com subscription offered through library access
e) Encyclopedia.com
b) ProQuest or another electronic journal/newspaper index such as EBSCO
g) Subscription research databases offered through library access such as Facts on File, Gale, etc.
h) Government sponsored (.gov) data and information websites
d) LII.org

Starting with encyclopedias would help narrow the search. Then once the topic is narrowed articles can be found to help narrow the topic further. After that, research databases and statistics from government sites can support the other research (these types of materials do not make good primary research). Lii is last due to its wide variety of information, some more recent and relevant than others. Its quality seems less predictable though the sites are reputable.

I would not recommend the following since they often cannot be authenticated or verified by a reliable source:

a) Wikipedia
c) Searching via their favorite search engine