Southwest Iowa Library Service Area

Putting Reference Skills to Use

An Independent Study Course
15 hours CE credit
(You will work hard for these 15 hours!)

Description

Putting Reference Skills to Use is an independent study conducted in your own library. The purpose of this course is to provide you with an opportunity to follow up on FirstSearch and Electric Library training with real-life questions from your own patrons. You will use a series of worksheets to judge the effectiveness of four techniques – resources in your own library, the World Wide Web, EBSCOhost, and FirstSearch – for five reference questions.

Instructions

For each of five reference questions, you will complete worksheets throughout the reference process, evaluating the specific resource at each step.

Worksheet 1: Determine the real question (i.e., reference interview techniques).
Worksheet 2: Check resources in the library. Are any appropriate? Are any up-to-date?
Worksheets 3-7: Check Internet Resources
Worksheet 3: Formulate search criteria. Identify key words.
Worksheet 4: Search the WWW, using at least two search engines (completing a worksheet for each search engine)
Worksheet 5: Search EBSCOhost. Print results list and any relevant articles.
Worksheet 6: Search FirstSearch. Select the appropriate database(s). Print results list and any available article(s) in full text.
Worksheet 7: Evaluate the results and the process. What method was most effective for this question?

You may wish to share a few of the completed worksheets with your patrons who asked the questions originally--it's a chance for you to help them understand the searching and evaluation process; information literacy is a critical skill in today's world!

(Our thanks to Dreama Deskins of DKD Consulting for her assistance with these worksheets, and to Carole Stanger for testing the time required)

If you would like to participate in this hands-on, practical course, REGISTER BELOW, then click on the link following the registration form to go to the worksheets and instructions.

 

Name: 

Library:

E-mail address: 

Go to Worksheets

Southwest Iowa Library Services
3501 Harry Langdon Blvd., Suite 190
Council Bluffs, IA  51503