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VOLUME XIII, NUMBER 6

#& INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

WITH SUPPORT FROM THE W. K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

 

Curing Library Phobia

Five successful library assignments, made over the
first eight weeks of the semester, help students become
more comfortable with using the library.

1. Oxford English Dictionary assignment.
Write three meanings for a word with an example of
usage for each meaning. (The assignment is three
words. Of course, everyone gets different words.
This is a simple copying exercise, but the students get
to use the “big” dictionary.)

2. The biographical data assignment.
Given the name of a famous person, write a one-page
summary of his or her life using a biographical
reference other than an encyclopedia. Puta citation
at the bottom of the page. (The latter instruction is to
teach students to write a citation in Modern Lan-
guage Association style. I suggest reference books to
use: Current Biography, Contemporary Authors,
Dictionary of National Biography, Dictionary of American
Biography, and Dictionary of Scientific Biography. |
assign famous people whose essays appear in the
students’ textbook so that some relevance is attached
to the assignment.)

3. Team essay atlas assignment.
Write a short essay, including the number of maps
and pages, about the purpose of the atlas; make
explanations about two maps. Write a citation
following MLA style at the bottom of the essay.
(After a few weeks, it’s time to get out of the class-
room and go to the library. The students work in
pairs to write a 1-2 page essay.)

4. The New York Times assignment.
Write a summary of an article on the assigned topic.
Use only 1989 or 1990 indexes. Put the appropriate
MLA citation at the conclusion of the summary.
(Often these topics are current and interesting
enough that I will use the same list for research paper
topics. The purpose of this assignment is to get the
students accustomed to using The Times index, a little
trickier to use than the Reader’s Guide to Periodical
Literature and other indexes. It also enables them to
learn to use microfilm when they read articles.)

5. Christian Science Monitor assignment.
Look up your birth date in the Christian Science
Monitor and summarize an article from the day you
were born. Write the appropriate MLA citation at
the conclusion of the summary. (The students learn
from this assignment that the Monitor is not pub-
lished every day—take the day closest to your birth
date—and that, in the case of this college library, files
only go back to 1958. Again they learn about another
publication, and they get additional practice with
microfilm.)

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Other than these library assignments, the students
complete research on two of the four essays that pre-
cede a final research paper assignment.

On one, an explanatory essay, students must use
encyclopedias to find principles to support simple
products. For example, a student might investigate the
principle of flammable butane needed to operate a
cigarette lighter.

On the other, a causal analysis essay, they must use
the Statistical Abstract of the United States to research
statistical trends and develop theories about their
causes. For example, a student may speculate on the
causes for the decline of sales of black-and-white
television sets in the last 10 years.

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Many research tools that veteran library users take
for granted are new to students.

After these assignments, students are no longer
totally helpless when it comes to research. Certainly,
they must still master specialized indexes—Humanities,
Education, Science—but they know about some of the
reference tools.

Mary K. Taylor, Instructor, English
For further information, contact the author at McLen-

nan Community College, 1400 College Drive, Waco, TX
76708.

 

 

EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712

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THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin