BYU Idaho

I had such a great time visiting with the BYU Idaho librarians on Friday Nov. 3rd. We learned a LOT. My previous post includes all my notes from our discussion on Instruction / Information Literacy.

Here are a few more things I thought were interesting.

The reference desk is open all hours the library is open. It is staffed by students. For a few hours each week the paraprofessionals work on the desk (but they do this voluntarily). The professional librarians are available for consultation at most times. {I don't fully agree with this decision, but can see where it works for them. They do not have any graduate level programs.}

All student employees are required to attend weekly training sessions! Wow, that would be great.

Student employees are offered three online training modules. Each includes, worksheets and quizzes. The first module includes a shelving exam. The third module includes a presentation at a training session. Each module is tied to raises, .10, .15, and .25 cent increments. No more than one module can be taken per semester.

Students make very good money starting at $6.70

No homework can be done on work time. Instead, during down times the students are required to do shelf reading.

What are the largest difficulties/opportunities facing the library?

1. Advertising the library exists and what it has and can do.
2. Keeping up with technology and changes in information delivery
3. Money
4. Balance between online and print
5. Resources

The librarians at BYU Idaho were warm, funny, knowledgeable and very interesting. I got a lot out of this road trip and I think everyone else did too.

After Later
Jenny

Information Literacy Discussion with BYU Idaho librarians

information literacy
* what do you call it when talking to normal people?
-- information management
--advanced research skills
-- don't say we're going to help them find information
-- plagiarism (we're going to help them avoid this)
-- critical thinking about research/resources

*tips (best practices)
-- cost of information
how much the journals cost vs how much the magazines cost
what is the point?
Proquest article "The effects of recent parental divorce on their children's consumption of alcohol" (then search for this title in google and you see the cost for that article, and show how to find it in databases)
-- 74% of business executives believe that searching with google is a waste of time for business information. (Tom Thornton uses this article)
-- getting the time and money principle integrated in
-- bridging the gap between highschool research and college level research (credibility)
-- purpose to share knowledge, add into plagiarism

-- serials solutions helped them get Google Scholar set up to recognize their holdings

* Bibliographic style ppt
http://abish.byui.edu/library/nhtw_MLaApa.cfm?tab=btn2&menu=submenu1
To see the APA Tutorial
Still a work in progress, now working on an MLA tutorial.

* 1st year seminar
-- what we're doing: Academic Integrity Tutorial http://www.isu.edu/library/research/aitintropage.html
-- use of sample papers to discuss

* federated searching
-- They do federated searching using Webfeat
-- if you use boolean operators it will try and make it work
-- default is an and with two or so terms, but it's getting better and more sophisticated
-- can be slow, just got a new server at Webfeat
-- this is like net fishing in the ocean (tuna, plastic, porpoise, sardines...)
-- advanced search sets up several more configurations
-- fly fishing in the river and go directly to the databases

Very interesting!

Jenny