首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Gulf Between College Students and Librarians Students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it. This is on
The Gulf Between College Students and Librarians Students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it. This is on
admin
2012-08-10
41
问题
The Gulf Between College Students and Librarians
Students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it. This is one of the sobering truths the librarians have learned over the course of a two-year, five-campus ethnographic (人种学的) study examining how students view and use their campus libraries. The idea of a librarian as an academic expert who is available to talk about assignments and hold their hands through the research process is, in fact, foreign to most students. Those who even have the word "librarian" in their vocabularies often think library staff are only good for pointing to different sections of the stacks.
The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic libraries) project contains a series of studies conducted at Illinois Wesleyan, DePaul University, and Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois’s Chicago and Springfield campuses. Instead of relying on surveys, the libraries included two anthropologists (人类学者), along with their own staff members, to collect data using open-ended interviews and direct observation, among other methods.
The goal was to generate data that, rather than being statistically significant yet shallow, would provide deep, subjective accounts of what students, librarians and professors think of the library and each other at those five institutions.
Exploding the "Myth of the Digital Native"
The most alarming finding in the ERIAL studies was perhaps the most predictable: when it comes to finding and evaluating sources in the Internet age, students are extremely Internet-dependent.
Only 7 out of 30 students whom anthropologists observed at Illinois Wesleyan " conducted what a librarian might consider a reasonably well-executed search," wrote Duke and Andrew Asher, an anthropology professor at Bucknell University, who led the project.
Throughout the interviews, students mentioned Google 115 times—more than twice as many times as any other database. The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but the Illinois researchers found something they did not expect: students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes and displays its results. Consequently, the students did not know how to build a search that would return good sources.
"I think it really exploded this myth of the ’ digital native,’ " Asher said. "Just because you’ve grown up searching things in Google doesn’t mean you know how to use Google as a good research tool. "
Even when students turned to more scholarly resources, it did not necessarily solve the problem. Many seemed confused about where in the constellation (云集) of library databases they should turn to locate sources for their particular research topic: Half wound up misusing databases a librarian " would most likely never recommend for their topic." For example, "Students regularly used JSTOR, the second-most frequently mentioned database in student interviews, to try to find current research on a topic, not realizing that JSTOR does not provide access to the most recently published articles. "
Unsurprisingly, students using this method got either too many search results or too few. Frequently, students would be so discouraged they would change their research topic to something that requires a simple search.
"Many students described experiences of anxiety and confusion when looking for resources—an observation that seems to be widespread among students at the five institutions involved in this study," Duke and Asher wrote.
There was just one problem, Duke and Asher noted: " Students showed an almost complete lack of interest in seeking assistance from librarians during the search process. " Of all the students they observed—many of whom struggled to find good sources, to the point of despair—not one asked a librarian for help.
In a separate study of students at DePaul, Illinois-Chicago, and Northeastern Illinois, other ERIAL researchers deduced several possible reasons for this. The most basic was that students were just as unaware of the extent of their own information illiteracy as everyone else. Some others overestimated their ability or knowledge.
Another possible reason was that students seek help from sources they know and trust, and they do not know librarians. Many do not even know what the librarians are there for. Other students imagined librarians to have more research-oriented knowledge of the library but still thought of them as glorified ushers.
Influence of Professors and Librarians
However, the researchers did not place the blame solely on students. Librarians and professors are also partially to blame for the gulf that has opened between students and the library employees who are supposed to help them, the ERIAL researchers say.
Instead of librarians, whose relationship to any given student is typically ill-defined, students seeking help often turn to a more logical source: the person who gave them the assignment—and who, ultimately, will be grading their work. Because librarians hold little sway with students, they can do only so much to reshape students’ habits. They need professors’ help. Unfortunately, faculty may have low expectations for librarians, and consequently students may not be connected to librarians or see why working with librarians may be helpful.
On the other hand, librarians tend to overestimate the research skills of some of their students, which can result in interactions that leave students feeling intimidated and alienated (疏远的). Some professors make similar assumptions, and fail to require that their students visit with a librarian before carrying on research projects. And both professors and librarians are liable to project an idealistic view of the research process onto students who often are not willing or able to fulfill it.
By financial necessity, many of today’s students have limited time to devote to their research. Showing students the pool and then shoving them into the deep end is more likely to foster despair than self-reliance. Now more than ever, academic librarians should seek to "save time for the reader". Before they can do that, of course, they will have to actually get students to ask for help. "That means understanding why students are not asking for help and knowing what kind of help they need," say the librarians.
"This study has changed, profoundly, how I see my role at the university and my understanding of who our students are," says Lynda Duke, an academic librarian at Illinois Wesleyan. " It’s been life-changing, truly. "
What have the librarians learned from a two-year five-campus ethnographic study?
选项
A、Library computers are frequently hacked.
B、Students rarely turn to librarians for help.
C、Rare collection books are often destroyed.
D、Important book pages are often torn down.
答案
B
解析
文章开篇第一句便提出了学生很少向图书管理员寻求帮助的现象,紧接着第二句的This is句型则表明了第一句中所说的现实正是这项研究的发现之一,故选B
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/kP57777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Languageislearnedprimarilythroughcommunicationwithotherpeople.Researchshowsthatthemorecommunicationchildren【S1】__
ThenumberofspeakersofEnglishinShakespeare’stimeisestimatedtohavebeenaboutfivemillion.Todayitisestimatedtha
OneofthemostpopularmythsabouttheUnitedStatesinthe19thcenturywasthatofthefreeandsimplelifeofthefarmer.It
A、Thefamilyandtheschool.B、Theadultsandthemassmedia.C、Thesocietyandtheyoungpeople.D、Noneoftheabove.C题目询问说话人认
A、Shethinkshersonhasalmosteverythinghewants.B、SheisnotsurewhetheranMP3playerisanicegift.C、Shefindsithard
Astudyofarthistorymightbeagoodwaytolearnmoreaboutaculturethanispossibletolearningeneralhistoryclasses.M
Astudyofarthistorymightbeagoodwaytolearnmoreaboutaculturethanispossibletolearningeneralhistoryclasses.M
A、Sheisademandingperson.B、Sheissympathetictotheman.C、Shegotoutofthecourse.D、Shefoundnothingwrongwiththeco
A、physicsB、computerscienceC、travelandtourismD、chemicalC
A、Eatsomethingimmediately.B、Seeadoctorfirst.C、Don’tgostraighttobed.D、Don’tgotoworkimmediately.D
随机试题
形成阳虚证的常见原因有
以下哪项是休克的中医辨证
下列哪项是出血坏死性胰腺炎的重要体征
同时应对危害和机会的策略是()。
期货公司客户的交易结算单须载明的事项包括()等。
个人汽车贷款的借款人若要申请展期,须在贷款全部到期之前,提前()天提出展期申请。
银行对工程设计方案进行分析和评估,就是要分析工程设计方案是否经济合理,是否符合项目的总体发展。对工程设计方案的分析评估可以从()方面进行分析。
甲公司是一家售卖嫁女饼的老字号,一直以来都是以传统的方式运作。最近,公司接班人方先生希望扩张饼铺,由一家主店经营模式转型为连锁店的经营模式,利用企业化的管理、主动销售的政策去争取最大的生意额。但在进行变革时,受到几名元老的反对,公司某几个管理人员也对新管理
在手机和电子信箱越来越便捷的当下社会,能够收到一封手写的信件已是一种幸运,能够收到一封文辞醇美朴实、书法俊逸洒脱的书信,简直就是一种奢望。传统尺牍信札中所包含的博大精深的中华文明,似乎正渐行渐远,使即使不算老派的中年人,也不免感到一丝惆怅。这段文字最恰当的
在考生文件夹下,打开招生数据库SDB,完成如下综合应用:(1)创建文件名为form的表单,将表单标题改为:录取研究生。(2)在表单中设计"录取"和"退出"两个按钮。两个按钮功能分别如下:1)在"录取"按钮(Command1)中,编写程序,查询总成绩大
最新回复
(
0
)