Weeding Reference

During the past two years I have been taught that I need to teach students how to do effective online research.  I need to teach them how to distinguish between a reliable website and an unreliable one.  I've been taught that Google is the devil and a Database is your best friend.

But, never once have I been told to teach students that using reference BOOKS is still a reliable, useful skill.

Amy and I started weeding the reference section in the library yesterday, and it pains us both.  There are so many worthy, useful, RELIABLE books in Uni's reference section.  For a high school, this reference section is quite wealthy and rich.  I've been looking through old reference books, trying to figure out if they should stay or go, and I lean toward the stay option almost every time.  However, we can't keep all of them...or even half of them.  After weeding a book, I have to cross-check the ONLINE reference books/resources the University of Illinois is subscribed to, for if we can get it online, we should get rid of the book version.

What we've weeded so far.  I'm sure there will be at least two-three full carts before we're done.

I was talking with one student today, who asked what I was doing.  After a bit of intro as to what I was doing, I told him, "When you think about it, it's actually faster to go to one of these books."

"Yeah, maybe, " he said, "but I would have to come here, open the book, look up the information...With my phone everything is at my fingertips."

I countered with, "You're right.  You do have information at your fingertips.  But, if you need some quick info on just one person or topic, you can look them up in the correct book that we find for you, and go right there.  It takes just as much time to scan through articles making sure if you have reliable info or just some fan page."

He thought my point was valid, but I know what he'll do the next time he has a research paper.

Use the UIUC Online Reference Collection, scroll through databases, trying to find the right one, 

then searching for your topic

VS.

Opening up one or two books, finding the correct person/term, and reading a brief summary of that topic

As librarians, we spend so much time teaching students how important it is to have reliable sources.  Reference books might be THE most reliable source.  You know they've been researched, documented, and cross-checked...they can't be published WITHOUT these things happening.  I know the world is going digital, but sometimes it's still worth your time to take a few minutes to slow down, walk to the library, and open up a book.  The research you need is waiting right here.

Uni's rich reference section takes over almost the entire north wall of the library's front room.

I know I won't change students' minds to solely rely on books.  However, I want them to know that to be a well-rounded, educated, thoughtful student researcher, they need to look at online resources AND books.  Print is still not dead, and I want to teach my future students that.

Greensleeves

There's a science project goin' on in these here parts, and it's a science free read.  The Subbie group can read any non-fiction science book they want, so that gave Amy and me lots of room to pull cool books for book talks, displays, and a book cart. 

The students can find books in one of three ways: look on the shelves, look on a designated cart in the main room of the library, or seek help from Amy, Paul, or myself for a reference interview.  Amy requested a lot of texts from other libraries on campus, and then she asked me to go into our own collection and seek out interesting titles to face out on the shelves.  This was more fun than I thought it would be.  Here's me being totally honest: I didn't know how many interesting science books there are!*

Three of my favorite science books I pulled, covering three of my favorite topics: Harry Potter, time travel, and Buffy.

Amy started the collection for the Subbies to peruse, Paul processed all of the books and created "temporary" statuses for them, so they're properly acknowledged in the online catalog, and I, well, I had the GREENSLEEVES FACE OUT idea. 

We've put greensleeves on each of the books for the Subbies, and then for each shelf in our collection, I picked one or two texts to cover with a sleeve and do a face out.  We cannot cover each and every non-fiction science text in our collection, but I pulled several I thought were super interesting to do as face outs.  These sleeves draw the students' eyes, and if they like the subject/topic, but not that specific book, they can look down the shelf to find a book with a similar topic.  I will admit that I was proud of my idea, and it has worked.  Students were much more confident looking on the shelves knowing that there would be suggested face outs.  In fact, it worked so well that Amy, Paul, and I only did a few reference interviews. 

This is just another example of collaboration, and how a simple thing like a colored piece of paper can make all the difference in the world for a student to gain confidence in the library.




*CONFESSION TIME...I am not a great scientist: Science is my worst subject on Trivia Crack, and I wanted to enroll our daughter into a STEM school, so she would be sure to have a lot of science instruction in elementary school.  (When I was in elementary school, science was always THE LAST subject my teachers made room to teach.)