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In October last year the UKSG invited library and publishing students to throw away their textbooks and give us A perspective on accessing academic information in the Google Era, the winning entry being invited to give a paper as a breakout session at the 2009 UKSG Conference and Exhibition at the Riviera Centre, Torquay, 31 March - 1 April, followed by publication in a forthcoming issue of Serials. The winner also receives a free place on a presentation skills course courtesy of Taylor and Francis.
The judging panel is pleased to announce that Claire Duddy, reading for an MA in Information Services Management at the London Metropolitan University, was voted the winning entrant.
However, the judges felt that as the standard of entry was so high, the other entrants deserved a mention! As a thank you we are publishing excerpts from their thoughts on being 'digital natives' in this editorial. In addition each will receive free access to Serials E-news for the next year. In true X Factor style, the excerpts that follow are in no particular order . . .
. . . as for Claire's winning entry? You'll have to sign up to her breakout session at the conference!
See you in Torquay.
Graham Stone, UKSG Education Officer
Ask yourself what your actual information need is
Any information search begins by asking yourself what your actual information need is. Take this conference; before I could give a perspective on being a 'digital native' in the 'Google era' I had to consider what these two phrases were and what they meant me. Once this had been established I could understand the question in context.
Next, I identify any relevant information sources; which databases and journals are most appropriate, which professional organisations could provide the relevant information, is there a related blog online that might provide some interesting links? Then begins the process of forming and reforming a query in order to deliver a manageable number of search results. It is then a case of extracting the key themes and arguments from an information source, and evaluating and then communicating this information in order to satisfy the already established need.
Whilst all this is being done there are continual questions at the back of your mind; is what I am reading any good? Who has published it? Is it a peer reviewed piece? Has the research been carried out a level that can provide a valuable result? Has this work been cited by others? What kind of experience in the field does this writer have?
Hopefully, by the end of the process you feel that you have come to a valuable conclusion, whether this be to reaffirm a continuing trend, or more difficult, contributed a new piece of knowledge to the information world.
Samantha Abrahams, MA Librarianship, University of Sheffield
lip08sja@sheffield.ac.uk
Digital sources
Studying at university makes being online inevitable: we need the web to access general information about our university, schedule, and courses, pay our tuition fees, view additional material to lectures, complete assignments? No wonder we search for answers on the web. We live online!
When researching for an assignment I generally use Google (Scholar and Booksearch) and other search engines, as well as journal databases (EBSCO, JSTOR, ScienceDirect). Most libraries have subscriptions to at least one journal database - curiously enough the budgets assigned to online journal subscriptions are equal to the budget of printed books. (A similar amount is used for other e-resources; consequently most libraries pay almost twice as much for online resources as they do for books.) I then search the bibliographies of relevant articles, read articles referenced and finally seek out books in online library catalogues - for local libraries and/or nationwide, if there is the possibility of transferring them to my library. Google is also a useful tool when searching for current working papers on the topic.
Bettina de Keijzer, MA Publishing, Oxford Brookes University
bettinadk@gmail.com
Creating my own specialised library
As a digital native I first started to use the London Metropolitan University's catalogue system to find primary and secondary resources . . . I was dissatisfied and moved towards the huge collections captured by external resources . . . But still, I found myself searching in limited collection of literature . . . I moved toward Google in general, and Google Books and Google Scholar specifically . . . So at the end I was creating my own specialised library.
I also made use of many primary sources. These sources are difficult to get your hands on if you only research from the perspective of a library. However, Internet technology makes it easy to connect with experts in the field who have weblogs, Skype or twitter. Through these media I managed to extract qualitative and detailed information that was in first instance not clear to me in an article, but after personal or virtual contact through Twitter this changed and my knowledge base, as well as my research, improved significantly.
Richard Lalleman, MSc Information and Knowledge Management, London Metropolitan University
richardlalleman@hotmail.com; http://richardlalleman.typepad.com
Students are looking for subject matter
The first stop for any student is Google. Look at research as a form of deductive reasoning - students will start with the forest before focusing on the trees. Google is a tool most students use every day. It has a familiar layout and excellent advanced search. For example, it allows students to search for websites that end only in .ac.uk or .edu.
Despite issues with credibility, Wikipedia is still the first or second stop for most students doing research. It gives an overview of a topic from ground zero, assuming the reader knows nothing. Topic-specific publications, on the other hand, are usually written for peers and assume an amount of base knowledge. Most importantly, Wikipedia provides links to outside and often credible sources, making it an excellent starting point.
These steps will lead a student to three primary sources: the websites of academic publications (Victorian Literature and Culture), topic-specific databases (The Victorian Web), and large databases (EBSCO).
When it comes to the design of academic websites, boring is better. It's trustworthy. Students are very practiced at ascertaining credibility for online sources, and appearance is one way they can do it. Plain white backgrounds and small black text is standard. Having grown up with the internet, students have assumptions about how the internet should look, feel, and function. The navigation should be top and/or left-hand and should be text-based, rather than image metaphors. Students should be able to browse the site, pinpoint information on a site map, and perform both simple and advanced searches. Deviation from these norms will usually deter the user, even if it 'looks cooler'.
Since journals are purveyors of a database of information, organisation has to be impeccable. Most students are not looking for a specific volume, issue, or author. Students are looking for subject matter, so the organisation and navigation of the site should be categorical or alphabetical instead of chronological.
Taylor Leonard, BA Publishing, Oxford Brookes University
07066156@brookes.ac.uk
Amateur website or academic database?
Through personal experience it has been the amateur websites produced by the 'digital natives' that have been the easiest to navigate and seem to provide a practical avenue to approach what you are looking for. Whereas with academic databases you need to be clear in the search what you are looking for. With academic databases there are certain words that cause a tailspin effect of result that mean you need to meander through infinite pages of words that merge into black dots as you read through. With websites produced by the 'digital natives' the searches are refined by categories according to, for example, year, author, other criteria relevant to your search, formats etc . . .
. . . the ease of access to information and databases can be trying to those with or without experience within this mindset. Especially when databases that should be easier to access merely leave you with a headache and even more disgruntled than when you entered the library.
Emma Rogers, MA International Publishing, Oxford Brookes University
08063094@brookes.ac.uk
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