INFORMATION LITERACY : DATABASES : INTERNET: SEARCH: TOOLS: INTERNET: SEARCH: TECHNIQUE : DATABASE: SEARCH: TECHNIQUE: Databases and Search Engines: Why Doesn't Information Literacy Literature Focus More on Them?
David P. Dillard
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INFORMATION LITERACY :
DATABASES :
INTERNET: SEARCH: TOOLS:
INTERNET: SEARCH: TECHNIQUE :
DATABASE: SEARCH: TECHNIQUE:
Databases and Search Engines:
Why Doesn't Information Literacy Literature Focus More on Them?
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information literacy in Dictionary of Information and Library Management
/??nf? ?me??(?)n ?l?t(?)r?si/; noun the ability to find relevant
information
for a particular situation or problem, and to interpret that information
Title Dictionary of information and library management
Specialist dictionaries
Author Janet Stevenson
Edition 2, revised, reprint
Publisher A. & C. Black, 2006
ISBN 0713675918, 9780713675917
Length 229 pages
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Information Literacy: a Critical Skill and a Strategic Commitment
Definitions of Information Literacy
Plattsburgh State is committed to graduating students who are
information-literate. The definitions below clarify the meaning of this
critical skill and indicate why it is important for individuals as
students, scholars, and citizens.
SNIP
Information Literacy constitutes the abilities to recognize when
information is needed and to locate, evaluate, effectively use, and
communicate information in its various formats. (SUNY Council of Library
Directors, Information Literacy Initiative Committee, Final Report,
September 30, 1997)
SNIP
To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when
information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use
effectively the needed information. Producing such a citizenry will
require that schools and colleges appreciate and integrate the concept of
information literacy into their learning programs and that they play a
leadership role in equipping individuals and institutions to take
advantage of the opportunities inherent within the information society.
(American Library Association, Presidential Committee on Information
Literacy, Final Report , January 10, 1989)
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Information Literacy
http://www.collegeupgradingon.ca/current/infoliteracy/informationliteracy.pdf
"Finding Information involves using any of a variety of sources including
text, people, computerized databases or information systems. Finding
Information is highlighted in this section of the Profile as an essential
job skill. However, workers' use of various information sources may be
referred to in other sections such as Reading Text, Document Use, Oral
Communication and Computer Use"
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Information Literacy and Research Guide - Locating Information
South Dakota State University
http://www.sdstate.edu/library/research/locatinginformation.cfm
The only use of the word database in this document:
"Each Internet search engine sends out "spiders" that travel the Web
noting the contents (usually words contained in pages) of the sites they
visit. The information is then compiled into a searchable database. When
you using a search engine, it is the database that is searched and not the
actual Internet. The "spiders" only visit a certain percentage of the
millions of sites on the Web. The sites that are visited vary from search
engine to search engine, as does the way in which the respective engines
organize the information they find. As a result, there are significant
differences between the various search engines. Look below for a selected
list of search engines:
Gigablast
Google
Teoma
Wisenut
Yahoo!
MSN Search"
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Most college and university libraries spend a large part of their budget
and a large amount of money to procure access to bibliographic databases.
These tools provide access to many types of resources and a large number
of these tools provide access to research literature either in one or a
range of subject disciplines. A substantial number of these tools permit
multi-step searching and the facility to narrow searches to the subject
heading and/or the title occurrences of one or more words or phrases.
They may also permit searching for terms within so many words of each
other. Groups of terms or sets of terms may be combined so that the
values of more than one set can be blended to facilitate a more precise
search.
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Here is an example of a search strategy or group of sets that are combined
to find precise content on a topic, adolescents and informed consent:
S1 informed w0 consent
S2 TI informed w0 consent
S3 SU informed w0 consent
S4 adolescen* or teen or teens or teenag* or youths or juveniles
S5 TI adolescen* or teen or teens or teenag* or youths or juveniles
S6 SU adolescen* or teen or teens or teenag* or youths or juveniles
S7 SU adolescen* or teen or teens or teenag* or youths or juveniles
S8 (s2 or s3) and (s6 or s7)
S9 s8 and s2
S9 s8 and s2
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Each group of terms is limited to subject heading (SU) and title (TI).
Combinations are made to produce results that have informed consent in
either the title or subject heading and the terms for adolescent must be
in the source title. This type of precise field searching is not possible
in internet search engine tools.
This kind of precise searching leads to titles such as this:
Informed consent in pediatric cancer clinical trials: giving adolescents a
voice.
From chattel to consenter: adolescents and informed consent
Obtaining informed consent: observations from community research with
refugee and impoverished youth
Intervention research with youths at elevated risk for suicide: meeting
the ethical and regulatory challenges of informed consent and assent.
Electroconvulsive therapy in adolescents: Patient attitudes, satisfaction
and informed consent procedures
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While finding information is a core component of information literacy,
searching for the consideration of databases and internet search tools in
the information literacy literature yields a small percentage of the
literature regarding information literature. A recent Alert Box asserts
that student lack of searching skills is a serious problem in learning and
education.
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Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, April 11, 2011
Incompetent Research Skills Curb Users' Problem Solving
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search-skills.html
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"Users increasingly rely on individual pages listed by search engines
instead of finding better ways to tackle problems.
Although some analysts questioned the finding of search dominance, it's a
user behavior that gets stronger every year. Today, many users are so
reliant on search that it's undermining their problem-solving abilities.
Ironically, the better search gets, the more dangerous it gets as people
increasingly assume that whatever the search engine coughs up must be the
answer.
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One recent study participant referred to "my old friend Google" as the
place to go when given a task - a remarkable indication of how closely
people are tied to search these days.
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During our user testing in Asia-Pacific last month, I watched users
conduct more than 100 searches for a broad range of tasks. Only once did I
see a user change strategy.
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Given the rarity of strategy shifts, we'd need much more data to precisely
estimate how often they happen. In this round of user research, our goal
was to update the Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability seminar, so we
focused on website design, not on search engine statistics.
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Still, the rough estimate from our available data is obvious: users change
search strategy only 1% of the time; 99% of the time they plod along a
single unwavering path. Whether the true number is 2% or 0.5%, the
big-picture conclusion is the same: users have extraordinarily inadequate
research skills when it comes to solving problems on the Web. "
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Given students and other internet users rely on quick and intuitive
searches in web search tools to meet their research needs, one could posit
that training in the use of databases as well as training in specialized
internet search tools would be a very important part of information
literacy education and in particular internet literacy literature.
Surprisingly this is simply not the case.
Consider these EBSCO database search results:
These databases were searched:
Database - Academic Search Premier;Agricola;Alternative Press
Index;Alternative Press Index Archive;America: History & Life;American
Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies;ATLA Religion Database
with ATLASerials;Biological Abstracts;Business Source Premier;CAB
Abstracts;CINAHL;Communication & Mass Media Complete;Communication
Abstracts;Education Research Complete;ERIC;European Views of the Americas:
1493 to 1750;Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text;Funk &
Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia;Garden, Landscape & Horticulture
Index;GeoRef;GeoRef In Process;GreenFILE;Historical Abstracts;Hospitality
& Tourism Complete;Index to Printed Music;International Bibliography of
Theatre & Dance with Full Text;Legal Collection;LGBT Life with Full
Text;Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts;MAS Ultra -
School Edition;MasterFILE Premier;MEDLINE;Mental Measurements
Yearbook;Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print;Middle Search
Plus;Military & Government Collection;MLA Directory of Periodicals;MLA
International Bibliography;Music Index;Primary
Search;PsycARTICLES;Psychology and Behavioral Sciences
Collection;PsycINFO;Race Relations Abstracts;Regional Business
News;Religion and Philosophy Collection;Research Starters - Education;RIPM
- Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals;RISM Series A/II: Music
Manuscripts after 1600;Social Work Abstracts;SPORTDiscus with Full
Text;The Nation Archive;The National Review Archive;The New Republic
Archive;Urban Studies Abstracts;World History Collection;Readers Guide
Abstracts (H.W. Wilson);American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical
Periodicals Collection: Series 1;American Antiquarian Society (AAS)
Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 2;American Antiquarian Society
(AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 3;Criminal Justice
Abstracts
with these results:
S1 information w0 literacy (17738)
S2 database* (3957601)
S3 s1 and s2 (986)
Less than one of seventeen articles that mention information literacy also
mention databases in these articles.
Consider search results from Google Search Tools:
Google Web Search
"information literacy"
About 3,840,000 results
"information literacy" and (database OR databases OR "search technique")
About 1,620,000 results
"information literacy" and (database OR databases)
About 1,620,000 results (0.26 seconds)
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Google Scholar
"information literacy"
Results 1 - 10 of about 50,200
"information literacy" and (database OR databases OR "search technique")
Results 1 - 10 of about 23,200
"information literacy" and (database OR databases)
Results 1 - 10 of about 22,800
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Google Books
"information literacy"
About 38,200 results
"information literacy" and (database OR databases OR "search technique")
About 13,200 results
"information literacy" and (database OR databases)
About 12,700 results
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SCIRUS
"information literacy"
319,704 hits
"information literacy" and (database OR databases OR "search technique")
147,142 hits
"information literacy" and (database OR databases)
147,125 hits
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Temple Summon
"information literacy" returned 8,373 results
"information literacy" and (database OR databases OR "search technique")
returned 3,085 results
"information literacy" and (database OR databases) returned 3,040 results
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It would seem that a majority of articles that discuss information
literature fail to consider databases despite finding information being a
key component of the definition of information literacy. It has been my
experience, as well, that use of databases is typically not a part of the
teaching done at the high school level and that much of the teaching at
the college level regarding how to use databases is done at a minimal
level. The failure to teach more than the most rudimentary skills about
searching to students in high school and college may be one of the major
reasons why Johnny cannot do research and perhaps one factor in the
success of term paper mills in selling their products.
Students Lack Basic Research Skills, Study Finds
Wired Campus
The Chronicle of Higher Education
April 11, 2011
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/
students-lack-basic-research-skills-study-finds/28112
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A shorter URL for the above link:
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Information Illiterate or Lazy:
How College Students Use the Web for Research
Christen Thompson
Libraries and the Academy 3.2 (2003) 259-268
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Making the leap from high school to college:
Three new studies about information literacy skills
of first-year college students
Fitzgerald, MA
Journal: Knowledge quest
ISSN: 1094-9046 Date: 2004
Volume: 32 Issue: 4 Page: 19
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Desperately seeking citations:
Uncovering faculty assumptions about the
undergraduate research process
Leckie, GJ
Journal: The Journal of academic librarianship
ISSN: 0099-1333 Date: 1996
Volume: 22 Issue: 3 Page: 201
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Research Skills and the New Undergraduate.
Quarton, B
Journal: Journal of instructional psychology
ISSN: 0094-1956 Date: 2003
Volume: 30 Issue: 2 Page: 120
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"Of course it's true; I saw it on the Internet!"
critical thinking in the Internet era
Graham, Leah
Journal: Communications of the ACM
ISSN: 0001-0782 Date: 2003
Volume: 46 Issue: 5 Page: 70
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Information-seeking behavior in generation Y students:
Motivation, critical thinking, and learning theory
Weiler, A
Journal: The Journal of academic librarianship
ISSN: 0099-1333 Date: 2005
Volume: 31 Issue: 1 Page: 46
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The land of confusion?:
High school students and their use of the World Wide Web
for research
Lorenzen, M
Journal: Research strategies
ISSN: 0734-3310 Date: 2001
Volume: 18 Issue: 2 Page: 151
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How do we bridge the gap between what we teach and what they do?
Some thoughts on the place of questions in the process of research
Bodi, S
Journal: The Journal of academic librarianship
ISSN: 0099-1333 Date: 2002
Volume: 28 Issue: 3 Page: 109
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Writing a research proposal:
The role of library anxiety, statistics anxiety, and composition anxiety
Onwuegbuzie, AJ
Journal: Library and information science research
ISSN: 0740-8188 Date: 1997
Volume: 19 Issue: 1 Page: 5
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College knowledge :
what it really takes for students to succeed and
what we can do to get them ready
Author: David T Conley
Publisher: San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 2005.
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WEBBIB1011
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Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jw...@temple.edu
http://daviddillard.businesscard2.com
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