1. Library Research
a primer for teaching assistants
Ann Hemingway
Information Literacy Coordinator
Morisset Library

2. In this presentation
Incoming students perceived and
verified research skills
Google, Google Books and Google
Scholars, Wikipedia
What about the library resources?
Questions

3. The truth about incoming
students’ research skills

4. Preliminary findings of the
ERIAL Project
The Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) project is a
two year series of ethnographic studies conducted at Illinois
Wesleyan, DePaul University, Northeastern Illinois University, and the
University of Illinois to examine students, librarians, and professors’
perceptions of libraries and each other at academic institutions in Illinois
http://www.erialproject.org

5. Finding # 1: They may be Twitter
and Facebook experts
but their skills at searching
need improvement
Only seven 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,
whom the Illinois consortium called in to lead the project.
(quoted from USA Today article http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-08-22/Study-College-students-rarely-use-
librarians-expertise/50094086/1)

6. Finding # 2: They have a strong Mindset
“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. “
“Years of conditioning on Google had not endowed the Illinois Wesleyan students
with any searching savvy to speak of, but rather had instilled them with a stunted
understanding of how to finely tune a search in order to home in on usable
sources, concluded the ERIAL researchers.”
(quoted from USA Today article http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-08-22/Study-College-students-rarely-use-
librarians-expertise/50094086/1)

7. Finding # 3: They don’t know that they don’t know
“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 students did not identify that they were having
difficulties with which they could use help," wrote anthropologist Susan Miller and
Nancy Murillo, a library instruction coordinator at Northeastern Illinois. "Some
overestimated their ability or knowledge."”
(quoted from USA Today article http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-08-22/Study-College-students-rarely-use-
librarians-expertise/50094086/1)

8. The Google Family
Authority, relevance and factual accuracy
Advanced Search Features
Google Scholars
Good to do a quick search but fulltext is seldom available
(journals, conference proceedings)
Google Books
Excerpts not full books. good tool to determine if the book is
relevant. Pitfalls include, quoting without the context of the full
book

9. Nature of wikipedia (collaborative writing
tool)
Authority, factual accuracy, sourcing

10. The Library: How we can help
Website : WWW.biblio.uottawa.ca
Resources and Services
Research Guides
Finding help

11. Contact us:
The library offers you several ways to get in touch:
Phone
For general inquiries, call 613-562-5213. Or call your library
directly.
Email
Send your question to referenc@uottawa.ca - we usually respond
within 24 hours.
In person
We have staff available to help you at each library. Check your
library hours.
We also have specialists available to discuss your assignment or your
research. Find your librarian.