Resources
New Zealand Electronic Text Centre has posted a list of online texts for current courses at VUW.
The Dept of Internal Affairs has launched Government datasets online, a directory of publicly-available NZ government datasets (especially but not exclusively machine-readable datasets).
Complementary Twitter accounts:
- APStylebook (Sample: Election voting: Use figures for totals and separate the large totals with “to” instead of hyphen.)
- FakeAPStylebook (Sample: To describe more than one octopus, use sixteentopus, twentyfourtopus, thirtytwotopus, and so on.)
Information Literacy
There was a lot of interest at and after LIANZA09 about the Cephalonia Method of library instruction (basically, handing out pre-written questions on cards to students to ask at appropriate times during the tutorial). A recent blogpost by a librarian worn out from too many tutorials wonders “what if the entire class session consisted of me asking students questions? What if I asked them to demonstrate searching the library catalog and databases?”
Scandal du jour
A document by Stephen Abram (SirsiDynix) on open source library management systems (pdf, 424KB) appeared on WikiLeaks. The biblioblogosphere saw this as evidence of SirsiDynix secretly spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) against their open-source competition. Stephen Abram replied on his blog that it was never a secret paper and he’s not against open source software but it’s not ready for most libraries. Much discussion followed in his blog comments and on blogs elsewhere; Library Journal has also picked up the story.
For fun
Also at Library Journal, The Card Catalog Makes a Graceful Departure at the University of South Carolina – rather than just dumping it the library is hosting events such as a Catalog Card Boat Race and What Can You Make With Catalog Cards?
Deborah
Deborah, I am a bit worried about myself because after having read the "Things Librarians Fancy" I realised that I have become quite attached to the nice little compact book trolley we have in the Law Library. I have even given it a name. I like to take it with me on jaunts around the Law Library and I feel very proud of showing it off because it is so compact and manoeuvrable. I am also quite fond of cardigans. Do you think I will be OK or should I seek help? Caroline Anderson.
I hate the phrase ‘no-brainer’ but it is the only one I can think of when I think of the Cephalonia Method. It seems so obvious that the key to students learning is to engage them in the learning process rather than letting them sit on the sidelines and observe. Caroline Anderson.
Yes, and going beyond that to asking the questions to the students and getting them to provide the answers seems like it could be really useful for teaching catalogue/database/general process-driven topics.
In fact, I’d be tempted to go one further and start the class by asking the students to provide the questions: "So your lecturer told you to come – what are you expecting to get out of this tutorial? And what do you *want* to get out of the tutorial?" Write down the questions that come up and go through them one by one: "So we’re wanting to find journal articles for your subject – where can we start?" and follow their suggestions.
(If there are topics they don’t suggest that we want to communicate, we can always tack them on at the end – if we still feel they really are that important.)
Not only would it make for a more engaging class, but it would also give them practice in coming up with their own solutions, so could be empowering well beyond the class. (The only thing to watch out for I think would be if some students were very quiet – there’s the potential risk of amplifying the "Eek, everyone else knows how to use the library and I’m the only stupid one!" feeling of shame which feeds into library anxiety and library avoidance.) Plus it’d give us some immediate feedback about how our resources are working for students and what (if anything) they’re expecting to find but don’t find.
Deborah
PS I’m wearing a cardigan right now. Do I need help?