George Kuh article for discussion in October

The article which the ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group has chosen for October is:
Kuh, G. and Gonyea, R.M. (2003) The Role of the Academic Library in Promoting Student Engagement in Learning. College and Research Libraries, 64(4), 256-282. http://crl.acrl.org/content/64/4/256.abstract
To join the discussion, go to http://connect.ala.org/node/189260
George Kuh is an influential figure in US Higher Education, and I think that this article is still worth reading (whether or not you decide to join in the debate!) The authors took data from the College Student Experiences Questionnaire and compared various sets of questions including the set of questions relating to library use, some key questions to do with satisfaction, and a set of questions which they selected as being a (sort of) match with ACRL standards.
The authors make some pertinent remarks about how important variables to do with previous academic achievement, ethnicity etc. are, when trying to link library use with academic success, something which some other studies gloss over.
The evidence does not support an easy correlation between academic excellence and library use, or library use and (the authors' measure of) information literacy. The final paragraph reads:
"The findings of this study indicate that it takes a whole campus to produce an information-literate college graduate. For this reason, librarians would do well to redouble their efforts to collaborate with faculty members, instructional development staff, and student affairs professionals in promoting the value of information literacy in various in-class and out-of-class activities and to provide students with as many opportunities as possible to evaluate the quality of the information they encounter, on and off the campus."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn arriving, Sheffield, October 2012

New information literacy articles

The magazine SCONUL Focus Number 55, 2012, has been published. It includes a number of concise articles about information literacy e.g.
- The missing link: making the connection between information literacy and an excellent student experience by Christiana Titahmboh, Carol Price, Janice Wright
- ANCIL in action: progress updates on a new curriculum for information literacy by Emma Coonan, Jane Secker, Katy Wrathall , Helen Webster
- The ‘cut and paste’ of undergraduate research by Alison Henesey
The articles can be accessed freely at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/55/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Painting on an empty shop, Hailsham: it includes a QR code (I think to link to the artist's website)

Presentations: Supporting Diverse Student populations

Presentations from the ALISS conference on Supporting Diverse Student populations (held in August 2012) are available. They include:
- Ethnicity and Study Skills: active intervention in the library setting (Suzanne White and Lisa Lawrence, Subject Librarians Coventry University.)
- Using Elluminate to deliver library training to distance/ part time learners (Helen Clough Learning and Teaching Librarian, The Open Univeristy.)
- Library support for International students (Helen Ireland , University of Warwick.)
- Online learning: Can a generic tutorial meet the disparate needs of researchers? (Jenny Coombs- University of Nottingham)
Go to http://www.alissnet.org.uk/Display.aspx?id=10737418259
Photo by Sheila Webber: seed head, Jonkoping, August 2012

Student retention ACRL discussion

The ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group is discussing the article: Emmons, M. and Wilkinson, M. (2011) "The Academic Library Impact on Student Persistence". College and Research Libraries, 72 (2), 128-149. http://crl.acrl.org/content/72/2/128.full.pdf+html
The discussion takes place throughout August. You can read the comments by visiting the page, and can also join the discussion if you sign up to ALA Connect (free, you don't have to be an ALA member): go to http://connect.ala.org/node/184729
Photo by Sheila Webber: My front door, August 2012

Latest issue of Reference Services Review

Volume 40 issue 3 is the latest issue of the priced publicaion of Reference Services Review. Articles include:
- Relationship Building with Students and Instructors of ESL: Bridging the Gap for Library Instruction and Services: Julia A. Martin, Kathleen M. Reaume, Elaine M. Reeves, Ryan D. Wright
- Outreach Initiatives in Academic Libraries, 2009 - 2011: Melissa Dennis
- Reaching Out: Connecting Students to Their Personal Librarian: Cynthia L. Henry, Kimberly K Vardeman, Carrye K Syma
- Post-graduate health promotion students assess their information literacy: Catherine Hodgens, Marguerite C Sendall, Lynn Evans (there is a free pre-print version of this article archived here: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/50319/)
- "It’s Research Made Easier!" SMS and Chat Reference Perceptions: Margie Ruppel, Amy Vecchione
- A LibGuides presence in a Blackboard environment: Aaron Bowen
The home page for the journal is here: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324
Photo by Sheila Webber: Wild rose, Hailsham, July 2012

Information literacy and employability

There is now a section on the Sheffield University Library website about information literacy and employability, including short "testimonies from recent University of Sheffield graduates, reflecting on how information literacy skills learned at University are now helping them in their daily working lives." http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/infolit
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet another poppy, Sheffield, July 2012

Powerpoint on "Contract Cheating"

Interesting ppt from a recent conference, The New Challenges Of Contract Cheating by Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke (Birmingham City University). Contract cheating is putting up details about the assignment you want written for you, and people bid to do the work. The ppt explains the process and ways in which it might be detected. http://www.bcu.ac.uk/_media/docs/ContractCheatingSIG_220612_LancasterClarkeKeynote.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Millennium sculpture and pontoon outside 02 dome on the Thames, from cable car, June 2012

Journal of Information Literacy new issue

There's a new issue of the open access Journal of Information Literacy, volume 6, number 1 (2012) at http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/index. It includes the following, plus a conference report and book reviews:
- The experiences of Chinese PhD students in Australia: Encountering information literacy challenges: Jinghe Han
- Business information literacy teaching at different academic levels: An exploration of skills and implications for instructional design: Mariela Gunn, Cynthia E. Miree
- Active and reflective learning initiatives to improve web searching skills of business students: Alison E Lahlafi, Diane Rushton, Erica Stretton
- Learning Literacies through collaborative enquiry; collaborative enquiry through learning literacies: Jo Ashley, Freya Jarman, Tunde Varga-Atkins, Nedim Hassan
- Looking to the future: Developing an academic skills strategy to ensure information literacy survives in a changing higher education world: Helen Howard
- Creating an online tutorial to develop academic and research skills: Sara L Thornes
- The Welsh Information Literacy Project: Phase 2: Cathie Jackson
Photo by Sheila Webber: Alium heads, Sheffield Botanic Gardens, June 2012

Poster: let she who does not Google cast the first stone!

I've got a bit fed up with student-bashing about search habits. There is an Infographic that loads of people are tweeting at the moment that crams in some statistics about search habits, plagiarism etc., and when I looked at it I thought ... hmmm.
For one thing, I don't think it is a terribly good infographic: it is rather more like several Powerpoint slides one on top of the other (as opposed to something which conveys a clear message in a powerful graphic style; see e.g. Edward Tufte, the godfather of information graphics).
Secondly, although I too experience students who start by thinking they know more about searching than they actually do etc. etc., they are human, they learn, and it should be remembered that the vast majority of them do not plagiarise.
And thirdly, I use Google every day, loads of people use Google every day. I know it's also about how you use Google, and I grumble about the way Google search is going, but still ... the fact remains that you often find good stuff via Google. Using Google is often a rational choice.
So I made this graphic/ poster. If you like it, feel free to download etc., under a non-commercial Creative Commons licence from here.
P.S. "numpty" is an expressive Scottish word meaning fool or idiot (I'm not Scottish but I lived there for a while).

Social Media Use By Students With Disabilities

This looks an interesting article: Asuncion, J. et al (2012) "Social Media Use By Students With Disabilities." Academic Exchange Quarterly, 16 (1). http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/cho4973.htm They surveyed a convenience sample of 723 students/recent graduates with disabilities, in 2009, in Canada. They asked which social media they used, which were most difficult/easiest, what improvements could be made etc. The most used service was Youtube (91%). The top 5 recommendations were: Having a simpler or better layout; Improving privacy/ security; Fixing accessibility issues (e.g., CAPTCHA); Enlarging features on website; Having captions/ subtitles.
Photo by Sheila Webber: My daffodils, April 2012

New Libri

There's a new issue of Libri (2012, Volume 62 issue 1). Articles include:
- Keller, A. "In Print or On Screen? Investigating the Reading Habits of Undergraduate Students Using Photo-Diaries and Photo-Interviews" (pp 1-18)
- Bankole, O. M., Oshinaike, A. B.and Banwo, C. O. "HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Attitudes and Sources of Information among Librarians in Southwestern Nigeria (pp 41-51)
- Tan, S., Gorman, G. and Singh, D. "Information Literacy Competencies among School Librarians in Malaysia" (pp 98-107)
The Libri website is at http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/libr (priced journal).
Photo by Sheila Webber: Daffodils, Botanic Gardens, Sheffield, April 2012.

Undergraduate information behaviour: 2 new articles

Latest issue of Information Research (volume 17 no. 1), the open access journal,includes:
A study of the information search behaviour of the millennial generation by Arthur Taylor. "The longitudinal study discussed here examined the information behaviour of undergraduate college students who were members of the millennial generation. Data were collected from the students using surveys throughout an information search process as part of an assigned research project. [...] Statistically significant findings suggest that millennial generation Web searchers proceed erratically through an information search process, make only a limited attempt to evaluate the quality or validity of information gathered, and may perform some level of 'backfilling' or adding sources to a research project before final submission of the work."
Information resource selection of undergraduate students in academic search tasks by Jee Yeon Lee, Woojin Paik and Soohyung Joo. "A self-generated diary method was employed with 233 undergraduate students in achieving their academic search tasks. [...] This study reaffirmed recent information usage trends that online sources are preferred by university students in their academic searches. This study identified twenty nine factors in four different dimensions, including information type, resource feature, search strategy, and interaction with others. Moreover, perceptions of users were investigated quantitatively focusing on usefulness, credibility, accessibility, familiarity with source, satisfaction, and intention of continuous use."
Go to http://informationr.net/ir/17-1/infres171.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Botanic Gardens, March 2012.

Student emails

There's a short piece in the Eastern Daily News about how students need to improve the information they give, their literacy, and the tone of what they write, when they email their teachers. We had been discussing this issue at our staff/student committee, and it seems that it would be a good idea to give more guidance about using email when people start at the university. I myself don't follow all the advice in this article (e.g. I sometimes use "lol" and I end most of my emails "best wishes") and I'm not too much of a stickler in this area, but one increasing issue is emails sent via mobile devices, where it isn't clear who is sending the email. The news story doesn't mention information literacy, but I think it is: part of "understanding how to plan for and gather information from other people".
Daily Eastern News. (2012) "Staff Editorial: How (not) to email your professors." Daily Eastern News, 2 February. http://www.dennews.com/opinion/editorials/staff-editorial-how-not-to-email-your-professors/article_c48ec264-4e18-11e1-9da2-001a4bcf6878.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: valentine ballooons, Amsterdam, February 2012

Arcadia project reports

I have blogged about the recent information literacy currculum project which was part of the Arcadia Programme, but I don't think I have highlighted some of the other outcomes from the prammes. There are still some reports to be published, Student reading in theory and practise by Oszkar Nagy and a report on implementing the information literacy curriculum. As background, "The Arcadia Programme was a three-year programme (2008-2011) funded by a generous grant from the Arcadia Fund to Cambridge University Library. The grant enabled us to explore the role of academic libraries in a digital age, create new programmes and services, particularly for undergraduates -- and also to improve the external environment of the library."
Previous reports/websites include: History uncovered - by Carolyn Keim; Internet Informed Patient symposium website and blogs on the event - by Isla Kuhn; Postgraduate information needs and online tools awareness - by Esther Dingley; IRIS(Induction, Research and Information Skills) - by Lizz Edwards Waller. Go to http://arcadiaproject.lib.cam.ac.uk/publications.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: branch on the icey lake, Sheffield, February 2012

Short articles: PBL; Twitter; Discovery tools; QR codes

A new issue of SCONUL Focus (Number 53, 2012) has, as usual, numerous short and readable articles about academic libraries. These include:
- 'Twitter ye not?' by Emma Cragg (aka 'ekcragg') & Antony Brewerton (aka 'librarian boy')
- Focusing on students' discovery tool preferences by Sarah Elsegood
- Introducing problem-based learning into one-shot information literacy instruction at Waterford Institute of Technology Libraries by Alan Carbery & Nora Hegarty
There is also an item by one of the students currently on our MA Librarianship programme, written about the library where he was a trainee: Using QR codes in the library at Leeds Metropolitan University by John Bottomley
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/53/
Photo by Sheila Webber: birch and winter sky, January 2012

Video: College Research: What I Wish I Had Known

Evelyn Barker, Instruction and Information Literacy Librarian, at the University of Texas at Arlington, interviewed students to ask them for their advice to people aiming to study at university as regards what "would have better prepared them for college research." She published the resultant video on Youtube in December, entitled College Research: What I Wish I Had Known. The students come up with a lot of sensible advice about managing time, using resources etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzYIXWMhahk