I love FriendFeed and I love pathologically helpful librarians. This is just one of a few examples from just today where someone asks a question to the gang on FriendFeed and gets a tidal wave of useful resonses.
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First we talk about the importance of keywords and play a sort of scattegories with a topic that a student suggests, or I give if they’re reluctant participants. (Bigfoot worked really well!) They get 1-2 minutes to write down all the words they can think of that relate to the subject. Then we compare notes starting with those students who had the most words.
Divide the group in three, each group uses either Google or a good General database I name or the library catalog. They can work together or individually at this point.
After 5 minutes or so and when I’m sure that they’ve found something. Get 1 volunteer from each group to come up and demonstrate how they found and what they found.
Interrupt where you think appropriate to ask them pointed questions like, “Would you use that in a paper?” or “Why did you search that way?” Jump in as needed to fill in missed information or tips for searching. Before moving onto the next person, make sure to take over and cover whatever may have been missed, i.e. how to find it in another database, use of subject headings, etc…
Warning: this method requires a lot of thinking on your feet and a willingness to deal with a high degree of ambiguity.
That being said, it has been fairly successful for me, and most of the students seem to take to it.
Comment by HockeyLibrarian — October 28, 2008 @ 9:52 am