On "online" research

[bunnyjadwiga]

A faculty member in a metro area commented that they made their students include one resource in their paper bibliographies that wasn't online. I'm reposting my response:

We've had to beg our professors to REMOVE this requirement from their
papers-- we subscribe to 20,000-30,000 journals online through
electronic journal services and only about 4,000 in print, and we were
having to teach the students BAD research habits to find anything
related to their papers in our print journals. Bigger institutions
with larger research collections don't have this problem yet, but I
can see it coming down the pike.

Instead, we teach the students the difference between the subscription
services, with subject indexing, that we have, and the 'open web' and
it's worked out so far-- but that's because we catch them twice in
their first year of college. Changes in the "first year experience"
coming down *our* pike may mess that up.

If I could do one thing as a professional researcher in the SCA, I
would get SCAdians to find out what electronic resources their local
libraries offer, and have them USE those resources, and demand more.
Also, I run into a lot of people who think that once a journal is
electronic it's no longer accessible to non-academics-- but most small
colleges will let you come in and use a public-use computer in the
library to access their electronic journals.

A while back I ran into someone from the Midrealm who was allegedly
marked down for using "Early English Books Online" (a subscription
service) for her herbal research, because it was "Online." I couldn't
decide whether to laugh or cry-- these are scanned microfilms of
multiple versions of extant printed books from the Early printed books
period (1473 to 1700), so it was the closest to primary sources you
could get. In some cases, it's the ONLY way to get access to those
resources as they haven't been reprinted and are in closed special
collections. Only rather rich libraries have access to it, and it's
worth tracking down any libraries in your area that have it that will
let you use it on their computers.

Comments

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

One of the best classes I ever took was a Critical Thinking class that spent the first two weeks talking about how to vet online sources. I still use the information when teaching documentation classes in the SCA.

[deborah]

Even in library school in 2004, I had some professors who didn't understand the difference between "open web" and "peer reviewed journal to which the university's primary access is via a computer". To be sure, some professors actually did want us to use print resources: Balay, various encyclopedias, some CQ publications we only had in print, its center. Teaching prospective librarians how to value a high-quality print reference collection is a wonderful thing. But that is different from using the right resources to find the information you need, and in this day and age, a lot of institutions (such as yours) have more digital than print, especially in recent fields and in the sciences.

On the other hand, I think it's very reasonable to tell your students that they have to limit their open-Web citations to a bare minimum. And it would be kind of neat to do a bibliographic instruction research project in conjunction with the faculty member in which the student did an assisted literature search with a tutor looking over their shoulder to make sure that the "fulltext" box never got checked. It would be pedagogically cool if you could turn on an interface to an index/abstract database that HID whether or not there was fulltext and available until after the abstract had been read, and the student had the opportunity to check a box adding the article to a shopping cart. Then, if it turned out that the items in the shopping cart weren't available, part of the assignment would be the students still had to follow through and obtain those articles by hook or by crook. Which, these days, with automatic plug-ins from most subscription databases into interlibrary loan systems, would be pretty trivial, anyway. Which is a lesson in and of itself!

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

BRAVO!!!!!!

[landverhuizer.livejournal.com]

last paragraph... actually I find that wayyy cool!

Our local library is very sucky, but can get a few semi-decent books from other libraries in the province shipped in. Too much here is French :s our local university is also French... I have hit a few walls here with that too. But, different country and rather unique province.

[anastasiav.livejournal.com]

I applaud what you're saying, but let me comment on this:

Also, I run into a lot of people who think that once a journal is electronic it's no longer accessible to non-academics-- but most small colleges will let you come in and use a public-use computer in the library to access their electronic journals.

At least for me, that makes it effectively no longer accessible. A hard copy journal I can copy and take home to read at my leisure. I simply don't have for or five hours at a stretch to spend doing research in the library any longer. Students can access this material through remote access see list here - I cannot.

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

We run into the same thing at the public library with high school studens doing research. Their teachers tell them things like they can only have 2 online sources and 5 print sources. It is sometimes almost impossible to find 5 print sources. Our Youth Servies manager has even without an explanatory letter that students can take to teachers to help them understand subscription databases.

[kandy-elizabet.livejournal.com]

Man, it's so different from when I was in school these (mumble) years ago.

If it's available, actually, I'd love to see the outline on the class on evaluating on line resources. My research training goes back to microfiche in the basement (and even then I was one of the few students who would take the time to dig deeper), and thumbing through actual card catalogs -- then simply strolling the stacks near the number of one book to see what else might be there.

Of course, the last time I went to Penn and looked at EEBO, it was actually "EEBOMicrofiche...." :)

[tattycat.livejournal.com]

We've just started having this problem-- with our new librarian, who wanted us to replace the ancient encyclopedias we weeded (because we have the same material in a subscription database). Her reasoning was that the kids are told not to use online resources, and "it's just easier" to keep the print than teach them the databases =/= the Web.

[hakerh.livejournal.com]

Wait, someone was marked down for using EEBO? *Shaking head*

I've been going on a rampage of saving copies of anything even remotely interesting, since my EEBO access runs out at the end of this semester if all goes according to plan & I graduate.

[pearl]

It would mean more bibliographic information to record in ones' references, but maybe considering resources that are provided through EZProxy or somesuch, could be considered to be 'closed' and part of the uni instead of on the open web?

I mean where the URL still contains your university, like http://[resource URL].ezproxy.[university].edu.au

Including the URL in the bibliography would show that it was an 'approved' source, and not wikipedia. It just all falls apart when you look at a lot of the journals that have made their back issues online available to anyone though. (Examples being the Hrčak portal, or the copyright-expired books at the Digital Library of Wielkopolska.)

I do wonder how much of the anti-internet sources feelings are due to the use of the internet being seen as the 'easy' way to get information, so the lecturers are trying to get their students to walk into a library instead of sitting at home on their computers with remote access to electronic journals?

Not SCA research (per se), but ...

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

Preach it!

I have my students write a series of 4 short papers -- an Endangered Animal, an Endangered Plant, something Invasive, and an Ecosystem. I'm also at a *very* small Community College with a pitiful library.

For the endangered stuff, there are virtually *NO* print resources -- at least not here. I do require at least 2 different web pages/sources (corroborating but not duplicate information). And I've had students cite online Botanical Journals (which absolutely thrilled me to death!). The Georgia Library System is pretty phenomenal especially in terms of the electronic resources.

Now, if SCA folks could only understand that *finding* a new book on EEBO doesn't mean that they *own* the find. Research doesn't just include the "literature search" -- it's what you do with it afterwards that counts!