English 1213

Session One: Information Literacy, Search Strategies & Catalog Instruction

Frederic Murray, MLIS

InformationLiteracy

Information Literacy

• It is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.

Library Instruction in the Information Age• A single current newspaper contains

more written and visual information than the average person in the 17th Century was likely to come across in their entire lifetime. There are many areas of literacy that all add up to Information Literacy: Cultural, Visual, Media, Network, Computer, Traditional Alphabetic Literacy, and Library Instruction.

Did You Know….

Exponential Growth of Information • Human Genome

• Neptune Project

• Global Earth Observation System of Systems

University of Washington:Neptune Project

• The new field of ecogenomic sensors, takes advantage of technology developed in the Human Genome Project, such as DNA and protein microarrays and large-scale DNA sequencing to discover who is in the ocean (such as what microbes live there), what are they doing, and how do they respond to events in the oceanic environment.

• Images provided courtesy of the NEPTUNE Project www.neptune.washington.edu

Educational Goals for 21st Century

1. Teach Students to be self-directed & understand how to organize more & more of their own learning.

2. Teach our students the importance of global communication.

3. Teach our students to deal with massive amounts of information.

Library Instruction in the Information Age

• New Search Strategies are required

• Critical evaluation is more important than ever

• Hi-Tech Research

Define: Catalog, Database, Indexes

• A comprehensive list of the books, periodicals, maps, and other materials in a given collection.

• A large, regularly updated file of digitized information related to a specific subject or field.

• An alphabetically arranged list of headings consisting of the personal names, places, and subjects treated in a specific work.

Search Techniques

• Keyword • Basic Boolean

Identifying Keywords

• Identify the significant terms and concepts that describe your topic from your thesis statement or research question.

• These terms will become the key for searching catalogs, indexes, and databases for information about your subject.

Keyword Examples

• Death Penalty

– Lethal injection – Gov. George Ryan – Cruel and unusual

punishment – Amnesty

International – Stanley (Tookie)

Williams

• Government Bailout

– Bear Stearns– Fannie Mae and

Freddie Mac– Housing bill– Savings and loan

crisis– Henry Paulson – Subprime

mortgages

Keyword Phrases

• Single concept, multiple words• Some electronic resources require

keyword phrases be enclosed with punctuation– Quotation marks – SWOSU Catalog – Parenthesis

Boolean

• AND = Narrow

• OR = Expand

• NOT = Exclude

Boolean Operators

• Connect keywords only• Must be placed between keywords• AND

– Narrows your search

• OR– Expands your search with synonymous

terms

• NOT– Excludes words from your search– If used too much, it can work against you!

Class Exercise

• Keyword Building ExerciseTopic: U.S.A. Presidential Elections

• Thesaurus.com

U.S.A. Presidential Elections

State

American

National

Voting History

Choosing

Balloting Record

Politics

Catalog: Finding books

• Relevance

• Keyword searching with Boolean operators

• Limiters

• Subject searching (hyperlinks)

SWOSU Catalog

Open WorldCat

Ebrary

• Ebrary provides more than 44,000 digital books in a broad range of subject areas, including business, technology, health and medicine, literature and the humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies. Ebrary digital books contain the full-text and illustrations of their print counterparts

Exercise

• Catalog worksheet– SWOSU– WorldCat

– Topic: U.S.A. Presidential Elections

Questions?

• Contact me:– Frederic Murray

• 744-7113• frederic.murray@swosu.edu

Thanks!