I notice that Tuesday's ACRL blog post was discussing the desirability of librarians working with academics on facilitating information literacy. One of the prompts was that a couple of non-library academics in the USA (Rochelle Rodrigo and Susan Miller-Cochran) have published a book, The Wadsworth Guide to Research.
I wondered what "Wadsworth" meant, but it simply appears to be the series imprint. I found a sample chapter at http://www.wadsworthmedia.com/marketing/
sample_chapters/1413030327_ch09.pdf and other details are on the publisher's site here. Its key target appears to be academics teaching US rhetoric and composition classes, but I think it could be useful outside the USA, and it is certainly (from the sample chapter) more visually engaging than similar books I have seen.
sample_chapters/1413030327_ch09.pdf and other details are on the publisher's site here. Its key target appears to be academics teaching US rhetoric and composition classes, but I think it could be useful outside the USA, and it is certainly (from the sample chapter) more visually engaging than similar books I have seen.
I also found a video of Rodrigo and Miller-Cochran making a presentation (Use Wikipedia and YouTube in Research! Debunking the Library vs. Internet Research Dichotomy) in Second Life at http://media.nmc.org/2008/11/debunking-dichotomy.mov It is nice to see people being sensible about the uses of the internet and encouraging an evaluative approach, rather than a blanket condemnation of wikipedia etc.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Iced berries, Budapest, December 2004
I've long thought it inexcusable that ubiquitous tools, such as Google and Wikipedia aren't used more widely to teach (especially young) students skills in information literacy. These are tools they use every day. They may learn that there are more effective ways to use search engines, and fairly simple ways to discern a great deal about the veracity of the information that they discover. They are then more likely to take these skills with them - and these same skills may serve as a strong foundation for mastery of other search tools, and for both online and traditional source evaluation.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Matthew! This was the original exigence for the book. Shelley and I wanted to help students draw on the tools they were already familiar with to become more critically engaged with research.
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