Library Skills to Succeed in College

Nancy GuidryDawn Dobie

Bakersfield College Library

Are your students ready for college

research?76

61 63 62

26 3125

39

01020304050607080

Engl

ish/

Writing

Mat

hem

atics

Readi

ng

Scie

nce

High School TeachersCollege Instructors

Focusing on the Essentials for College and Career Readiness: Policy Implications of the ACT National Curriculum Survey Results 2009

Percentage of educators reporting that their state’s standards prepare

students well or very well for college

71

28

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

High School TeachersCollege Instructors

Focusing on the Essentials for College and Career Readiness: Policy Implications of the ACT National Curriculum Survey Results 2009

Do they have practice forming

good research questions?

Questions worth investigating

Start with reference reading

Narrow and widen topics

Edit focus as research

progresses

???

?? ?

Are they familiar with a wide spectrum of

sources?

Subject encyclopedias

Scholarly books

Periodicals

Web Sites

Others

Do they know about periodicals?

VocabularyJournalMagazineNewspaperPeer-

ReviewedPurposesAudiences

Do they have experience with online

databases?

How they work

What they are

How to access

How to search

For those databases, can they create good

search statements?

Keyword searching

Subject searching

Boolean operators

Limiters

Do they know that Web ≠ Google?

Visible Web—Only 1%!

Invisible WebDatabases

Search directories

Other strategies

Are they practiced at evaluating online

sources?

Thorough web evaluation skills essential

Six important questions

Using the BEST!

Do they know the world of citations?

Not the parking kind

Build citations for variety of sources in correct format

Be comfortable with array of in-text citation forms

What do your students know about plagiarism?

Understand what it is

Know how to avoid it

Be proficient atSummarizing

Paraphrasing

Quoting

Do your students use the library catalog?

Navigating a search

Comparing Library of Congress to Dewey Decimal

How can these skill areas be

strengthened?Working with Teacher

LibrariansSubject Specialist +

Research Specialist = TEAM

Learning in contextVariety of research

queriesVariety of project

formats

Do your students see the library as a resource

for more than books?

Other services frequently offered

Online subscriptions for periodicals and ebooks

Study space

Encourage your students to widen

their research knowledge

Online tutorials

Library workshopsOther academic workshops

Reference librarians love to help

Save time

Direct to resources

Help via many channels

Things they should carry

ID cardCashKnowledge of computer sign-

onHow to access school emailKnowledge of remote access

proceduresDatabases, ebooksOnline labs

Writing implements

Internet resource list available

Transitioning to College: Helping You Succeed (Kent State)

Assignment Calculator (UCLA)

Citing Sources within Your Paper (Duke)

Websites Mentioned

Articles and reports cited (in order of mention in presentation)

Scribner, Sara. “Saving the Google Students.” Los Angeles Times 21 March 2010. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scribner21-2010mar21,0,764753.story

Focusing on the Essentials for College and Career Readiness: Policy Implications of the ACT National Curriculum Survey Results 2009 ACT http://www.act.org/research/curricsurvey.html

“The Web That’s Hidden from You” Weekend Edition Sunday. National Public Radio. 27 Dec 2009 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121946548

Other online resources

Transitioning to College: Joint project between Kent State University, academic, and high school librarians in Ohio http://www.transitioning2college.org/index.html

Assignment Calculator: UCLA Road to Research Tutorial http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/library/modules/freecalc/index.php

Citing Sources within Your Paper: Duke Libraries Reference & Research http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/index.html