J.E. & L.E. Mabee Library - University of the Incarnate Word

Library Research in the University Environment

By Leslie Todd

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools defines the information literate as those who have “the ability to locate, evaluate, and use information to become independent life-long learners.” Promoting life-long learning is one of the goals identified in the UIW mission statement, and the UIW library is actively engaged in helping its users master the skills associated with information literacy.

The UIW librarians work closely with the university faculty and staff. In summer 2004, the library hosted an information literacy workshop funded by Title V for a select group of faculty. Following an introductory session, the attendees met with members of the library staff to design four assignments that incorporated information literacy skills. Workshop attendees modeled their assignments at the concluding session. Infusing information literacy across the curriculum was the ultimate goal of the workshop. UIW realizes that library skills are vital to college success, and the Dean of Library Services and the Information Literacy Librarian have been asked to become members of the Goal IV Committee. Faculty are always welcome to contact the professional staff to voice concerns, request specific materials, receive one-on-one instruction, request research assistance, or ask advice on how students might get the most benefit from the library and its resources.

Library staff conducted numerous in-class library sessions during the fall 2004 semester as they do each semester. Faculty schedule the sessions with the head of Public Services and one of the reference librarians designs and delivers a suitable program. At these sessions, the students are encouraged to participate and ask questions. They are also reminded that the library staff is always available to help them with their research needs.

During the spring and fall semesters, the reference desk is staffed from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. The librarians on duty handle all variety of questions – directional, fast fact, style guide, effective research techniques, print resources, library technology, and more.

There is more to the UIW library than meets the eye. In addition to a growing book, journal and AV collection, electronic resources provide students with access to more than 19,000 periodicals, more than 100 databases, 300,000 art images, more than 25,000 electronic books, and thousands of government documents. These resources have been selected to support academic research and are reliable sources of information.

Recently, two “user-friendly” academic research tools debuted. Both claim to support academic research. How useful are they? Are they no-cost or low-cost alternatives to academic libraries? Let’s compare them with our library:

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a new search engine from Google that allows users to “search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.” Some points to consider:

The site’s FAQs address an important issue – it explains that subscriptions are necessary to access much of the material cited; it then encourages users to check with nearby academic libraries, which may subscribe to the publication(s) in question.
The full text of some items is immediately available; citations and abstracts are more common. For these, the full text can sometimes be obtained for a fee ($10 - $60).

This cost aspect is especially worrisome – it creates information haves and information have-nots. Students with limited financial resources will have yet another hurdle placed in their way.

The lack of a thesaurus (controlled vocabulary) and other indexes (author, publication, date, etc.) make precise searches difficult, if not impossible. Since precision isn’t possible, too much information is retrieved.
Search results aren’t always “scholarly.” For example: a search on Willa Cather and the Southwest retrieved a publisher’s catalog of new titles.
Faculty (especially our Information Literacy Fellows) have been vocal about the declining quality of student research and want their students to use library resources rather than the Internet.

Learner’s Library

This service purports to be, a “simple and intuitive search tool that locates relevant material from a comprehensive list of current full-text academic journals and news sources and automatically generates the citations needed for their use in a term paper, article or Coursepack.” Some points to consider:

Many of the sources aren’t academic (for example: U.S. News & World Report, The Futurist, Black Enterprise)
Currency is a problem; most articles retrieved dated from the mid- to late-1990s.
Allows users to search by author, title, or source; cannot combine these functions for more exact searches.
Cannot limit searches by date; cannot limit to peer-reviewed journals.
For $15, students can subscribe for six months; it is definitely a “you get what you pay for” service.
Attempted to locate articles from the Spring 2004 issues of Communication Quarterly and Journal of College Reading and Learning; none of the 13 articles were available through Learner’s Library, though the service claims to provide access to the text of these journals. All of the articles are available through library resources (Communications & Mass Media Complete and Education Full Text).

J.E. and L.E. Mabee Library

The UIW library provides quality resources that are reliable and support academic research. As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, an academic library’s resources “deliver precise responses to carefully formulated queries. Users who take the trouble at the outset to devise an appropriate search strategy have to spend far less time browsing through irrelevant results … Research is a process of discovery in which we mine new information, search through it, and ultimately discover the few gems we need to produce a well-written paper.” Some points to consider:

The library’s research resources provide authority, precision, controlled vocabulary, copyright clearance, free document delivery, and in-depth results.
As a member of library consortia, the UIW library reaps the benefits of group purchase for many of our academic research resources.
Through TexShare and OCLC, students and faculty have access to the collections of other libraries.
More faculty members are designing assignments that require the use of specific library resources.
The professional staff is actively engaged in teaching students the information literacy skills necessary for academic, professional, and personal success.
The professional staff is always available to help students and faculty navigate through the information jungle.

Sample Searches

Google vs. library resources

Sample search: mortality among the obese due to diabetes or cardiovascular disease

Service used	Hits	Remarks
ProQuest Nursing Journals	4	All were relevant, all available in full text (used advanced search, subject indexes, and limited results to peer-reviewed articles available in full text)
Google	220,000	Terms used: obese, cardiovascular, diabetes, mortality
Google Advanced Search	29,200	Terms used: obese, cardiovascular, diabetes, mortality; limited by language (English), format (PDF), update (past year), terms location (text of page). By limiting by domain name (gov), the number of hits was reduced to 660.
Google Scholar	7,560	Terms used: obese, cardiovascular, diabetes, mortality

Learner’s Library vs. library resources

Sample search: locate “Commodifying Kids: Branded Identities and the Selling of Adspace on Kid’s Networks” published in Communication Quarterly, Spring 2004. (Learner’s Library claims to index the contents of this publication )

Service used	Hits	Remarks
Communication & Mass Media Complete	1	Used phrase “commodifying kids” and retrieved the desired article from the Spring 2004 issue.
Learner’s Library (natural language)	50	Used the phrase “commodifying kids” – article was not among the 50 retrieved.
Learner’s Library (exact phrase search	50	Used the phrase “commodifying kids” – article was not among the 50 retrieved. Even though the exact phrase search was used, the “commodifying kids” phrase did not appear.

Links and Select Bibliography

http://www.sacscoc.org/SectV.htm
Google Scholar Beta. 2004. Google. 30 November 2004 http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html#search1>.
Learner’sLibrary. 2 December 2004 < http://www.learnerslibrary.com/>
Bell , Steven J. "The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to
Google." Chronicle of Higher Education. 20 Feb. 2004 : 15.