Voyage of the Paradigm Ship

They say the truth is stranger than fiction. The following are actual interactions I had in the library with students and faculty related to the use of information resources. I shared these interactions, essentially without elaboration, in a series of animated PowerPoint slides at a faculty retreat at the beginning of the 2007-08 academic year.

We were just kicking-off our college’s information literacy program. I was trying to provoke awareness and buy-in from the faculty to the importance of our moving beyond “traditional” library and bibliographic instruction. I was appealing for a more collaborative relationship between the domains of classroom and library, by suggesting that librarians have a unique role to play in the teaching and learning process. If nothing else, librarians observe how students actually think about and use information resources as they try to negotiate the expectations of their professors in research and writing assignments. It was easy to raise a chuckle when exposing the foibles of the students in the situations I shared. It was a little more sobering when I put these in the context of faculty actions and attitudes that sometimes get in the way…

Student performs a catalog search for resources on a topic for a research paper. She requests three books through interlibrary loan. The books arrive. They are “on-topic” but otherwise unusable…

They were written for a juvenile audience.

Student types the following search query into Google (verbatim): “What affect did the crusades haveon the current war between Palestine and Isreal.”

He gets no results.

Students are having trouble finding a journal from which a professor has assigned readings on the course syllabus.

The title of the journal changed… 13 years ago.

Professor forbids students from using “Internet sources” in their research, but leaves the impression that an “Internet source” is any resource accessed using a web browser.

Students don’t think they are allowed to use the Library’s online journal literature databases.

Student is looking for a book to use in a research assignment. In order to direct the student to a useful resource, the librarian asks how he is developing his research topic.

“Oh, I’ve already finished writing my paper. I just need to cite a book… That’s what the assignment says.”

Student doesn’t appreciate research as a developmental and recursive process. It is viewed as a product constructed, in a single sitting, out of a grocery list of loosely assembled information resources.

“Let’s see. I need 3 books, 3 journal articles, and 1 reliable website on this topic…so I can write my paper tonight.”

Student seeks assistance from a librarian about a research paper assignment. While discussing ideas for how she might develop the topic, the student repeatedly expresses concern about her grade.

Rather than pursuing a direction of interest, the student wants to steer the paper in a direction she thinks her professor will approve.

Professor asks librarian: “Is it valid to cite directly from full-text journal articles accessed in a database, or do I need to secure the ‘real’ (i.e., print) article first?”

Both students and faculty are uncertain how to properly cite documents accessed in electronic format. Students are also confused by multiple discipline-based citation conventions (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.).

Student is caught plagiarizing on a Library Orientation assignment.

When asked to explain his actions, the student replies, “I would have never plagiarized on an important assignment.”