FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR LIBRARY COMPONENT: BUILDING FOUNDATIONS

The library component of the First-Year Seminar provides the opportunity for students to begin to learn the research skills that are necessary in an academic environment and crucial to information literacy.

To ensure academic success for our students:

Students should develop confidence in using a college library
Students should be introduced to the Library as place, and as gateway to information on a networked campus
Students should be aware of the role of librarians as resources and partners in learning
Students should have opportunities to engage intellectually with a topic, controversies within that topic, and sources pertaining to them
Students should have multiple opportunities to develop computer skills.

Students should begin to learn research skills crucial to information literacy:

Formulate (clarify, revise, and refine) a research question
Devise and implement an effective search strategy
Learn effective use of HELIN, Wheaton's online catalog
Select and use an appropriate full-text journal database or periodical index, print or online, for a topic search, and interpret citations
Learn how to gain access to books, periodicals, reference materials, videos, etc. in or from the Wallace Library, whatever the format
Develop and apply initial criteria for evaluating information and its sources
Acknowledge the use of information sources appropriately; cite in consistent manner.

Planning:

Stimulating, carefully planned instructional sessions, including demonstration of and practice with selected sources, which culminate in a carefully wrought assignment, where students put new and important skills into practice is our shared goal.
Clear, direct library component assignments which encourage the development of fundamental research skills in students are the most effective.
Timing of library class(es) should be relative to the due date of the assignment, and to students' readiness to focus on research. Be alert to the flood of new experiences early in the semester!
Successful library components are the result of serious, semester-long collaboration between faculty and librarian.

This page is maintained by Judith Aaron. Last updated on 8/3/06.
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