Instructional Strategies for Digital Reference: Methods to Facilitate Student Learning

Instructional Strategy

Portion of Transcripts

Example from Transcripts

Catch Them Being Good

2%

User: I’m trying to write a page a day.
Librarian: So you have plenty of time to order the best sources in case we don’t have them here.
Librarian: Good strategy!
Librarian: Once you have done some planning, reading, and thinking it will go a lot faster.
User: Yea … it seems like the hardest part is just gathering the sources.
Librarian: Alternating between research and thinking/writing tends to be a good strategy.
User: Yea.
Librarian: And then you’ll have more questions in your mind, so you can come over and gather some more since you are giving yourself plenty of time.

Think Aloud

6%

Librarian: What exactly do you mean by community impact?
User: Like what kind of people would live in an area … would it affect the kind of people that live in a community … fancy people … the like
Librarian: It would affect people with more money—is that it?
User: Yeah … I’m thinking that it would pull in people with higher incomes… because the environment would be cleaner …
Librarian: hmm, looking through results in Academic Search, thinking of how you’d find this sort of thing. One minute.
User: Thanks.
Librarian: It’s so easy to find articles on bio fuels, but so hard to find what you’re looking for. The articles are all about the engineering aspects …
User: Yeah.
Librarian: That’s not to say there aren’t articles, however.
User: True.
Librarian: I’ve been trying to find them doing variations like this …
Librarian: (bio fuels or biofuels) and consumer*
Librarian: (bio fuels or biofuels) and community
User: Right.
Librarian: (bio fuels or biofuels) and social*
User: That produced one!
Librarian: Maybe look at books? See www.library.edu/catalog/searchresult
Librarian: Maybe a book length treatment would get into the social impacts? Not sure.
User: Thanks for finding that!

Show, Don’t Tell

43%

User: Is carbon dioxide a primary pollutant or a secondary pollutant?
Librarian: hmmm … Let me see what I can find out.
User: Thanks.
Librarian: My colleague just checked the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
Librarian: Ok … try this: www.library.edu/searchdatabases
Librarian: click on the title of the encyclopedia
User: k
Librarian: Then search for “secondary pollutant” and click the first entry.
User: k
Librarian: You’ll need to search using the “Search this Title” box on the right.
Librarian: The first entry is called “Ecophysiological Responses of Plants to Air Pollution”
User: I’m checking it out.
Librarian: There’s a table in that entry that lists cO2 as a “primary” pollutant.
User: Thank you very much!

Chunk It up

3%

Librarian: There are several ways to find lit criticism.
Librarian: One way is to search the library catalog by keyword using the novel’s title & the word “criticism” …
Librarian: So for example … Moby Dick and criticism … although you’ll find tons for Moby Dick!
Librarian: You find whole books, but also book chapters (if you’re looking for something shorter than a book).
Librarian: Another way to find criticism about novels is to look for articles in a database called MLA.
User: I think I’m looking for scholarly articles.
Librarian: Ok, then MLA is the way to go …

Let Users Drive

3%

Librarian: What do you think of the results from that search?
Librarian: It’s hard for me to tell if any of those articles look relevant because I don’t remember what The Wasteland was about.
Librarian: To find out more info about the articles or books, click on the title.
User: Ok, great, I’m searching now …
User: Some of the articles look good!

Be the Welcome Wagon

4%

User: how do I find journal articles? Just like a book?
Librarian: You don’t find journal articles like books …
User: Every time I use the catalog thing, I just get confused.
Librarian: You need to use a special kind of search tool called an article database to discover which articles exist on your topic …
User: I’ve done that, but then it just confuses me.
Librarian: It’s not uncommon for people to look for articles on a topic in the catalog, but it doesn’t include the information about the journal articles … only whether we have a particular journal in our collection …
Librarian: I’m not surprised that you’ve been confused with finding journal articles. It’s not something you do every day.
User: Yes.
Librarian: Do you need to find journal articles now?
User: Yes.
Librarian: I’m happy to help you through IM!
User: Thanks for your help!

Make Introductions

18%

Librarian: Also, I would really recommend that you meet with our business librarian to see if she can help you find the kind of info you need in the business literature.
User: Oh, Ok! What are her hours?
Librarian: her name is SuzyQ.
Librarian: www.library.edu/staff/suzyq/
Librarian: She’ll be a huge help, I bet.

Share Secret knowledge

8%

Librarian: So you know that article databases like JSTOR are search tools that you can’t find through Google …
Librarian: They cost a lot of money and so that’s why you have to go through the library to get to them.
Librarian: The one we’re going to use first is called MLA International Bibliography …
User: Ok
Librarian: It’s got a crazy name and it sounds like what you’d use to make your References list in your paper, but it’s actually a big container (kind of like a search engine) with information about articles published in literature and film.
Librarian: You can get to it like this …