Fobert, John

Maher, Veronica

English

DOCS@RWU

Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUConnections University Libraries1-1-2009Connections, Winter, 2009; Issue TwelveJohn FobertRoger Williams University, jfobert@rwu.eduVeronica MaherRoger Williams University, vmaher@rwu.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://docs.rwu.edu/libnewsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Libraries at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Connectionsby an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationFobert, John and Maher, Veronica, "Connections, Winter, 2009; Issue Twelve" (2009). Connections. Paper 13.http://docs.rwu.edu/libnews/13CONNECTIONSRogerWilliams University LibrariesWINTER, 2009                    ISSUE  TWELVEThe library currently subscribes to two streaming video databases that allows one to bookmark, annotate, cite, link to, put into folders, share clips, and embed them wherever you like. Theatre in Video and Dance in Video, products of Alexander Street Press are available from our library home page (www.library.rwu.edu). Recently released, Dance in Video includes 250 dance productions and documentaries by performers and companies. From the ballets of Stravin-sky to documentaries on William Forsythe and Merce Cunningham Dance in Video offers more than 500 hours of streaming video. The-atre in Video offers such notable productions as The Ice Man Co-meth, Awake and Sing, Much Ado About Nothing, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with Lee  J. Cobb, Tennessee Williams, Neil Simon, Pirandello and many other original productions. How can you use this database? Both Theatre in Video and Dance in Video allow you to bring a new dimension into performance studies and production history. Students (limited to three simultaneous users at one time) can view multiple productions of a Shakespeare play, compare the stage works of legendary directors and actors, and examine documentary histories of the Federal Theatre Project and the Globe Theatre. Dance in Video also offers multiple productions of dance performance, interviews and docu-THe CLASSICS AT youR FINGeRTIPSmentary histories. The videos can be enlarged to full screen projection for class presentation or viewed on your office computer. The optimal operation requires Microsoft Inter-net explorer 7.0 or higher, or Firefox 1.0  or higher. In addi-tion you will need Macromedia Flash Player v. 8 or higher which is a free download from the database.  Alexander Street Press is also working on a new product, American History in Video which will include a video content from The History Channel. In addition to these subscription databases there are a growing number of “video on demand” sites available to the public. one such free service is the Annenberg Collection. you can also find this link from our database list. The Annenberg titles include teacher resources in the arts, foreign language, science, history, literature and other ar-eas. For example American Cinema, an instructional series on film history and Art of the Western World, a nine part series on works of painting, sculpture and architecture are available anytime. you are required to sign up and establish an account to get free access. The library is planning to add additional streaming video resources in the near future. If you would like more infor-mation on the streaming video resources currently available through the library or have specific requests contact Veroni-ca Maher, Media Resources Librarian, vmaher@rwu.edu. STREAMING VIDEO DATABASES Written by Veronica Maher, Media Services LibrarianBoth Theatre in Video and Dance in Video allow you to bring a new dimension into performance studies and production history.NEw VISuAl RESOuRcES cuRATORThe Roger Williams university Library has a new Visual Resources Curator.  Christopher Strasbaugh joined us in December as the new curator.  Chris is coming to Rhode Island from Independence, Kentucky, and in his most recent professional position he served as the Interim Visual Resources Curator at the university of Dayton in ohio.Chris’s educational background combines fine arts and art history.  In 2004 he was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Mount Vernon Nazarene university, in Mount Vernon, ohio.  After completing his undergraduate degree, Chris elected to pursue a course of study in art history in the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) at the university of Cincinnati.  While there, his academic achievement was recognized in the form of a partial university graduate scholarship, and he completed his Master’s degree in 2007.  As a student at the university of Cincinnati, Chris worked in the DAAP library in a number of roles, including work within the visual resources center.  There he applied his knowledge of technology and cataloging to the maintenance of the slide collection and the expansion of the university’s digital image collection.Chris’s experience at the university of Cincinnati led to his becoming the Interim Visual Resources Curator at the university of Dayton.  His former colleagues there have high praise for his depth of knowledge and his unfailing devotion to helping all who needed to use visual resources in their teaching and study.  We are very fortunate to have Chris join us as Curator of the Visual Resources Center at RWu.  The center, located in the Architecture Library, offers a continually growing collection of digital images in support of teaching and scholarship, as well as a more traditional collection of approximately 80,000 slides.  Please stop by to welcome him and take the opportunity to learn more about visual resources at RWu.PERSONNEl NOTESJennifer Shallcross is now the Learning Commons Specialist.  Jennifer will be working with the librarians to guarantee the success of the Learning Commons.Wendy Macdonough has joined the library staff as our new Learning Commons Administrative Assistant.  Wendy will be in charge of administrative and training tasks related to our student workers.Both Jennifer and Wendy are located behind the Information Desk.Many of you may not be aware but the library started delivering books to staff and faculty offices this fall. A number of faculty and staff are already taking advantage this new service.  How do you get this service?  Complete our online form and we would be happy to start delivering library items to your office. (http://library.rwu.edu/eforms/delivery.php)  you can request all borrowed items whether they are from our library or another library.  If it is ours or within HeLIN, just place a hold on the book through the request button in the catalog.  Inter-library loan items will automatically be delivered to you.  We are currently only delivering to locations on the main campus.  you must have a secure location to receive deliveries (office or mailbox).  We are doing deliveries Monday through Friday between 12 noon and 3 PM during the Spring and Fall semesters.  Due to staffing limitations, we will not be able to do delivery during intersessions or the summer and and winter sessions. If you have any questions, please contact Tim Spindler (254-3225 or tspindler@rwu.edu).THE lIBRARY DElIVERS!Biography Reference Bank Includes biographical profiles, feature articles, interviews, essays, book reviews, performance reviews, speeches, or obituaries from a large range of biography reference works.Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI) Indexes articles in design and applied arts including ceramics, jewelry, wood, graphic design, landscape architecture, interior design, computer generated graphics and more.GreenFILE Provides indexing and abstracts with some full-text linking to articles covering all aspects of human impact on the environment. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. Heritage Quest Online Find ancestors in the u.S. Federal Census (1790-1930) and search for information about people and places described in family and local histories.Historic Map Works extensive digital map collections with over 200,000 high-resolution, full color historic maps. The core of the collection consists of property and land ownership maps illustrating the geographic and development history of the united States. IBIS World Covering more than 700 industries, IBIS World is an important tool for Industry Market Research. Search by Industry, Keyword, or NAICS code. Includes Industry Research Reports and Industry Risk Rating Reports, and Public Company profiles.Making of Modern Law  Legal Treatises 1800-1926This archive — from one of the most important periods of legal development — is the world’s most comprehensive full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises anywhere. It allows for full text searching of more than 21,000 works from casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches and more — all separated into 99 subject areas.Proquest Central Multi-disciplinary academic database covering scholarly journals, newspapers and more. An excellent place to begin your research.Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia General scientific encyclopedia covering topics all scientific disciplines including animal science, anatomy, astronomy, chemistry, engineering, computer science, earth science, energy sources, life science, mathematics, medicine, physics, physiology, plant science,and power technology.NEw DATABASES fOR fAll 2008The Library is pleased to announce the following new titles have been added to the library collection.lIBRARIANS, lIBRARY INSTRucTION AND lEARNING OuTcOMESWritten by Barbara Kenney, Information Literacy LibrarianIn January of 2000, the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Board of Directors approved and implemented the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (IL Standards). As stated in the Standards, an information literate individual is able to:• Determine the extent of information needed;• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently;• evaluate information and its sources critically;• Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base;• use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose;• understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of  information,  and access and use information ethically and legally.There are five Information Literacy Standards, each with specific performance indicators and outcomes. Standard Two, for example, states that “The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently,” and specifies five Performance Indicators that outline explicit learning outcomes. College and university instruction librarians base library instruction sessions on the goals, objectives and learning outcomes outlined in the Standards by collaborating closely with classroom faculty. Librarians design pedagogy for instruction sessions that is based on classroom assignments, and identify specific student learning outcomes for each library instruction session. While the goals for any library instruction session are mutually agreed upon, the librarians are committed to building information competency into the learning outcomes for the session. So, practically speaking, how does this all work? Professor “H” contacts the Instructional Services Librarian asking to bring his students in for a library session so that students will learn to use the appropriate academic resources for their assignment. Prof. H outlines the assignment thus: students in expository Writing will be researching the topic of “sustainable agriculture” in order to write an eight-to-ten page term paper attempting to answer the question, “Does America have a food crisis?” Prof. H would like his students to reference at least ten scholarly resources in order to provide evidence for the answer to their research question.  Based on the requirements of the assignment, the grade level of the students, the amount of time allotted, and the topic, the librarian references the IL Standards in order to design the pedagogy for the session. For this session (70 minutes), the librarian decided to focus on three of the five IL Standards, and five learning outcomes, as follows. The italicized sections are the learning activities for the session.Standard One: The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed. The library instruction session begins with a review of the assignment and a brief discussion of what kind of information sources will be presented; they will be asked to take notes in order to maintain a record of the resources used in the session.Information Literacy Learning Outcomes:•[Student] explores general information sources to increase familiarity with the topic. Students are introduced to the library’s website and general, electronic information sources: ebrary for electronic books, and CQ Researcher for essays on current topics. Activity: Students will explore the resources in teams, printing at least one essay or chapter for review.•[Student] identifies key concepts and terms that describe the information need. Activity: After using the above resources to explore the broad topic of sustainability, students brainstorm new terms and synonyms to help narrow and focus their research. Standard Two: The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently. Using identified terms, students are introduced to three new information resources. A discussion of the difference between scholarly and popular literature, with examples, helps guide students to the appropriate sources.Information Literacy Learning Outcomes: •[Student] identifies keywords, synonyms and related terms for the information needed. Activity: Students use new terms such as: “agroecology,” “alternative farming systems,” and “land stewardship” (from the general resources above) to focus their research. •[Student] constructs a search strategy using appropriate commands for the information retrieval system selected, and implements the search strategy in various information retrieval systems using different user interfaces and search engines. Activity: Using the new terms, students search three scholarly databases: two general databases (Proquest Central and Academic Search Premier) and an environmental database (The Green File). Students are instructed to find at least three articles relevant to their topic.Standard Three: The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically, and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system. Activity: Working in teams or groups, students research their topics for thirty minutes. Individual and group consultation is available with classroom instructor and librarian. Information Literacy Learning Outcomes:•examines and compares information from various sources in order to evaluate reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, and point of view or bias. Activity: Students spend the last fifteen minutes of the session discussing and evaluating the information found. During consultation with librarian, students are directed to additional sources that focus on their narrowed topic, continually evaluating the information found against their information need.Simplified, the identified student learning outcomes for this session are:• Students will access and use a variety of academic resources, available online through the RWu library, in order to meet the requirements of their research assignment.• Students will be able to evaluate the sources against their need in order to focus and synthesize their research.over the past three years, Dr. Bonita Cade and I have collaborated on a project that was in part supported by the university Foundation to Promote Scholarship and Teaching. Dr. Cade’s students in her Research Methods in Psychology course are assigned several projects that require a sophisticated knowledge of, and competency in using psychology resources in order to successfully complete the coursework. The goal of the project was to instruct students in the use and application of the appropriate tools and processes for research in psychology in order to write a research proposal to be presented to the Human Subjects Review Board based on a student-constructed survey. We were also trying to answer the following questions:•Are student learning outcomes significantly improved in the area of information literacy by having an embedded/course integrated experience versus the “traditional” one or two-session library instruction?•What library instruction activities would provide the best foundation for students entering a Research Methods course?Together we identified the following student learning outcomes. At the end of the semester, as a result of incorporating a library lab into Research Methods, students will be able to:• Identify a  general topic for research and narrow the topic to a researchable question;• Locate scholarly material for psychological research, using appropriate research tools;• use controlled vocabulary (the PsycINFo Thesaurus) in order to effectively conduct research using subject specific databases;• Perform a literature review in order to locate and recreate a published survey;• Interpret the results of initial findings and refine the topic further;• Demonstrate a working knowledge of the resources available in the discipline;• Know and apply the criteria and standards for evaluation of published manuscripts;• Critically evaluate sources according to established criteria;• understand the ethical issues surrounding information technology and its use for (psychology) research.over the course of the semester, eight hours of library instruction were scheduled, and 20% of the grade (200 points out of 1000) was allotted for library assignments. Student learning was evaluated in multiple ways both in class and as homework, through assignments and pre- and post-testing. The measures indicated that the students achieved the desired learning outcomes. Students attained competency in the use of a variety of tools to do research in psychology, transferring these skills to other classes throughout the curriculum. Additionally, students demonstrated the ability to access, evaluate and synthesize the information found, and use it to create new knowledge. The ACRL Information Literacy Standards, Performance Indicators and Student Learning outcomes, while forming the foundation of our instruction program, are rarely articulated as formally as above stated. They are guiding principles that assist us in designing pedagogy for our library instruction sessions. By collaborating with classroom faculty, we jointly identify the goals for the sessions and design the activities for achieving those goals. Student learning outcomes are assessed in multiple ways, including through assignments, exercises and hands-on classroom activities that demonstrate student learning.  The goals for library instruction are usually straightforward and mutually agreed upon; the learning outcomes are evidence that we have met our goals and that students have learned what we’ve taught.lIBRARIANS, lIBRARY INSTRucTION AND lEARNING OuTcOMES cont.One Old Ferry RoadBristol, RI 02809-2921401-254-3375 or 401-254-3031http://library.rwu.eduCo-Editors:  John Fobert, Serials/Government Documents Librarian & Veronica Maher, Media Services Librarian

Connections, Winter, 2009; Issue Twelve

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Connections, Winter, 2009; Issue Twelve

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