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
36
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. "
Before librarians can realize the goal of "saving time for the reader" , they first should get students to______.
选项
答案
ask for help
解析
原文中的that指的足前一句中的academic librarians should seek to“save time for the reader”,因此倒数第二段第四句与题干属于同义转换,题干中的get students to与原句相同,故答案为ask for help。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/WP57777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Childrenmodelthemselveslargelyontheirparents.Theydosomainlythroughidentification.Childrenidentify【C1】______aparen
Whenonelooksbackuponthe1500yearsthatarethelifespanoftheEnglishlanguage,heshouldbeabletonoticeanumberof
Inacountrythatdefinesitselfbyideals,notbysharedblood,whoshouldbeallowedtocome,workandlivehere?Inthewake
Whatistherelationbetweenthecodeandculturewhichcreatesit,andwhichittransmitstothenextgeneration?~Linguistsin
Whatistherelationbetweenthecodeandculturewhichcreatesit,andwhichittransmitstothenextgeneration?~Linguistsin
Classifiedadvertisingisthatadvertisingwhichisgroupedincertainsectionsofthepaperandisthusdistinguishedfromdisp
A、Newtechnologyisbeingemployed.B、Advertisementsarebeingwidelyused.C、Newdesignsarebeingadopted.D、Moresyntheticma
Thedifferencebetweenaliquidandagasisobvious【C1】______theconditionsoftemperatureandpressurecommonlyfound【C2】_____
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteanessayaboutCross-CampusSelectiveCourses.Youshouldwriteatleast120
A、Hewasshopping.B、Hewaswatchingafilm.C、Hewasmakingaphonecall.D、Hewastalkingtoapoliceman.A题目询问约翰看到那个年轻女子的时候在干
随机试题
《中华人民共和国放射性污染防治法》适用于中华人民共和国领域和管辖的其他海域在()过程中发生的放射性污染的防治活动。
下列各利润表的项目中,不能根据发生额分析填列的是
“出生”属于_______概念。
A.RDW增加,MCV升高B.RDW增加,MCV降低C.RDW正常,MCV降低D.RDW增加,MCV正常E.RDW正常,MCV正常缺铁性贫血
下列融资需求中,银行受理时需要格外慎重决定贷款期的有()。
某资产类账户月初借方余额60000元,本月借方发生额120000元,贷方发生额150000元,则该账户月表余额为()。
采用成本模式进行后续计量的投资性房地产,其房产的折旧额,应计入其他业务成本;其地产的摊销额,应计入管理费用。()
A.肾小球系膜细胞增生B.肾小管上皮细胞玻璃样变C.两者均有D.两者均无膜性肾小球肾炎的表现是
Beingbroughtupinaninstitutionorbyneglectfulparents,apregnancy,earlymarriage,andshowingpoorplanningskillswere
Whichofthefollowingisacompoundword(复合词)?
最新回复
(
0
)