Allegany College of Maryland

Information Literacy News

Allegany College of Maryland April, 2005

Welcome to the first ACM Information Literacy News! These news items will hopefully inform and inspire you to develop your students’ information literacy skills relating to our own ACM resources as well as to those available beyond our campus.

ACM’s Information Literacy Web Page provides instructors with information to assist students to develop information literacy skills. It includes lists of print and online resources and rubrics to assist with skill assessment. Take a few moments to check it out!

Did you know?....that the ACM Library has several online tools for students on how to do research?

ACM's How to Do Research Web Page can be reached from the Library's main Web Page (http://www.allegany.edu/library). It includes links to tutorials, citation style guides, plagiarism information, and other tips and tools. Please encourage your students to explore it and to bookmark the ACM Library Web Page on their home computers.

Watch for future Information Literacy News Flashes coming to an inbox near you!

Information Literacy News

Allegany College of Maryland May, 2005

Welcome to the ACM Information Literacy News! These news items will hopefully inform and inspire you to develop your students' information literacy skills relating to our own ACM resources as well as to those available beyond our campus.

Ahhh….Summer…..Are you looking forward to curling up on the porch or stretching out on the beach with a good book? Along with the latest thriller or mystery for your summer reading, consider checking out one of the many books on information literacy our library has to offer; your students will benefit!

We especially like this one: Empowering Students II; Teaching Information Literacy Concepts with Hands-on and Minds-on Activities, edited by Carol Anne Germain and Deborah Bernnard. (Call no.: Z711.2 .E46 2004) This is a compendium of lesson plans which focus on teaching conceptual and transferable information literacy skills and include activities which foster and encourage critical thinking. Click here for the table of contents .

Watch for future developments on our Information Literacy Web Site over the summer and more Information Literacy News Flashes coming to your inbox in the fall.

Information Literacy News

Allegany College of Maryland September, 2005

Welcome to the first ACM Information Literacy News of the 2005-2006 academic year. This e-newsletter is intended to inform and inspire you to develop your students’ information literacy skills relating to our own ACM resources as well as to those available beyond our campus.

Did you miss the Information Literacy presentation at the All-College Meeting in August? Click the following link to read the presentation which includes an overview of IL skills and the services our Library offers:

We hope to provide additional details on specific topics in future issues of this newsletter. So, watch your inbox and please let the Library staff know if you have any questions or comments.

Information Literacy News

Allegany College of Maryland October 4, 2005

Do your students know that they have access to hundreds of thousands of research articles and other documents directly from their home computer, even in the middle of the night?

They do--- with the power of their ACM Library card, which provides access to over a dozen databases of publications---from fields such as health, education, business and others. These are predominantly scholarly and reputable publications, which are NOT available from a Google search.

Encourage your students to stop by their campus Library to get instructions and a Library card. The barcode on it will allow them to use this wealth of information from any computer, 24/7.

and click on either the "Online Databases" or the "Off-campus Access to Online Databases" box. The latter requires a library card barcode to log in to the Maryland Digital Library.

This e-newsletter is intended to inform and inspire you to develop your students' information literacy skills relating to our own ACM resources as well as to those available beyond our campus. The Library staff welcomes your suggestions and comments.

Information Literacy News

Allegany College of Maryland October 25, 2005

Do your students cite inaccurate, out-of-date or biased information that they found on the Internet? One important Information Literacy skill is the ability to evaluate resources, including web sites. Google can be a helpful tool, but information literate individuals need to know how to evaluate the results of a search in Google or another search engine.

The following link offers advice on how to evaluate web pages. Click here to view that page:

This link is also available on our "How to do Research" web page, so remind your students that they can access it from there. Encourage your students to bookmark the ACM Library home page: http://www.allegany.edu/library/

then, click on the "How to do Research" box, then scroll down to the link, "Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask."

When the Library staff provides instruction classes, we try to touch on some of the methods to evaluate the wealth of information in cyberspace. If you are interested in a librarian providing your students with instruction in web site evaluation, please contact Mary Huebner, Coordinator of Library Services, ext. 5294.

Information Literacy News

Allegany College of Maryland November 22, 2005

If your students are currently writing final papers and struggling with writing citations, there are several helpful resources available. The following website is particularly useful because it includes color-coded examples of each of the major citation styles: APA, MLA, Turabian, Chicago and AMA. It also provides brief notes and links to the original websites of the various organizations. http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citation.htm

This link is also available on our “How to do Research” web page, along with other links and useful information, so remind your students that they can access it from there. First, go to the ACM Library home page:

http://www.allegany.edu/library/ then, click on the "How to do Research" box, then scroll down to the link, “Citing Electronic Resources.”

Of course, all campus libraries have the printed manuals from APA, MLA, etc., and Librarians can assist students in writing proper citations, so please encourage your students to ask for assistance.

Evaluating publications is a critical aspect of being information literate. If your students need a good overview to learn the differences between scholarly and popular publications, take a look at this excellent chart prepared by the Colorado State University Library: http://lib.colostate.edu/howto/poplr.html This chart compares popular magazines, trade magazines and scholarly journals in terms of physical characteristics, audience, content, accountability, and ads. It also provides examples and has a brief definition of peer review. The user can also follow a link to a useful page on “How to Evaluate Journal Articles.”

Note that a link to this site is also available on the ACM Library’s website, so encourage your students to visit our page at http://www.allegany.edu/library/ then click on the “How to Do Research” box and then scroll down to “Popular vs. Scholarly Journals.”

Another important note: several online databases now allow the user to limit the results to scholarly publications. The library staff will be glad to assist students in using this feature, so encourage them to ask for assistance when they are researching online.

Does this scenario sound familiar? It’s 11:30 PM and you are preparing notes for a class. You realize that you don’t have the complete spelling of the authors of an article you want to cite. You try the internet, but really don’t have the time to read through lists of search results. You know that the ACM library is closed…what to do?

Contact the experts at AskUsNow! Go to the ACM Library’s web site www.allegany.edu/library (you DO have it bookmarked on your home computer, don’t you?) scroll down and click on the AskUsNow! Icon which looks like this:

Then follow the instructions. You will be able to communicate with a librarian via interactive chat. The AskUsNow! librarians, part of a Maryland state-wide program, can provide answers to questions, give research guidance and help you to navigate the Internet. There is a librarian available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Please remind your students of this valuable and convenient service. Because ACM’s library staff participates in this cooperative service, all students and staff at all campuses of ACM (including PA campuses) are eligible to receive these services.

For further details, click on the ACM library web page link above, next click on the AskUsNow! icon and then click on the link “How it works.”

Here is an excellent online resource for your students working on assignments involving research on controversial issues. The Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center database is accessible through our ACM library web site. Go to www.allegany.edu/library and click on the appropriate Online Databases box (i.e., on- or off-campus), then click on Opposing Viewpoints. (Note: off-campus access requires use of a valid ACM library card barcode number.)

This resource provides information on a wide range of controversial issues, such as stem cell research, capital punishment, media violence, etc. Keyword searching is also available to search for topics not on the basic subject list. A search result list begins with a list of “viewpoint essays” written on one aspect of the topic, pro or con. If the user clicks on the appropriate tabs above the result list, there are also reference articles (e.g., articles from encyclopedias or reference compilations), statistical tables, magazine and newspaper articles, primary documents (such as transcripts of congressional debates), images and related web sites on the topic.

Of particular importance is the excellent “Research Guide,” accessed by clicking on the icon at the top of the page. This guide provides tips on analyzing current issues, including “Judging Opinionated Material,” and how to “Review the Author’s Credentials and Affiliations.” It also gives advice on critical thinking skills, including “Distinguishing Fact from Opinion and Bias from Reason,” “Recognizing Deceptive Arguments,” “Recognizing Ethnocentrism and Stereotypes.” and “Preparing for a Debate or Group Class Discussion Using OVRC Viewpoints.”

If you require your students to research current controversies, please take the time to review this valuable resource and recommend that your students use it. As always, the library staff is available to assist you and/or your students with any questions you might have.

Do you have visual learners in your classes? If you are assigning them research projects, you will want to let them know about a new service available on several of our online databases. EBSCO, publisher of several databases we make available to our students through the ACM Library Website, is now offering Visual Search capabilities.

Instead of receiving a long list of citations as a result of a search, the user can receive a visual, interactive map of the results in which categories and subcategories are represented by circles and squares. Some students might find this more understandable than a traditional search. This service is available in the following databases: Academic Search Premier, Alt Health Watch, Business Source Premier, CINAHL Plus, Health Source: Academic/Nursing Edition, Health Source: Consumer Edition, ERIC and MasterFILE Premier.

For more details on how this works, go to any of the databases listed above* and click on the Visual Search tab at the top of the search page. A brief description will appear. You can then also choose to take a tutorial by clicking on the link at the upper right of the visual search box, [“New to visual search? Take our tour.”]

Try it! As always, the ACM Librarians will be glad to assist you and your students to use this new service and to answer any questions you might have.

This e-newsletter is intended to inform and inspire you to develop your students’ information literacy skills relating to our own ACM resources as well as to those available beyond our campus. The Library staff welcomes your suggestions and comments.

Did you know that you can read an entire article from your favorite magazine, scholarly journal or major newspaper, directly from your computer …whether or not our Library subscribes to the printed version?

Better yet, you can be prompted with an email when the latest issue is available online. This is a feature which the ACM Library makes available on its web page.

To determine if the publication you want to read is available full-text online:

1. First, go the ACM Library web page www.allegany.edu/library and click on the Online Databases box. (If you are off-campus, see below.)*
2. Next, click on the appropriate database. **
3. Next, click on the Publications tab at the top of the page. Locate the publication you wish to read by browsing the alphabetical list.
4. Next, click on the link for the publication information and note whether it is available in full-text. A PDF file will indicate that any graphics and photos will also be included.
5. You can then click on the appropriate issue link. You will receive a list of titles of articles from that issue.
6. Click on the full-text link under the title you want to read.

When you reach the publication you want to read, if you wish to be notified by email when the next current issue becomes available online, click on the “Journal Alert” link (on EBSCO databases) or on the “Set-up Alert” link (on Proquest databases). EBSCO requires that you register with a user name and login password first. Both database publishers allow you to enter an email address to be notified when the latest issue is available. The instructions for entering information are straightforward, but try clicking on the Help link, if you have any questions…or ask a Librarian to assist you.

*For off-campus access click on the Off-Campus Box, and Login via the Maryland Digital Library using your last name and the bar code from your valid ACM Library card. Don’t have a card? It takes just a few minutes to get one; stop by your ACM Campus Library to ask. It’s free to students, faculty and staff.

** This feature is available from the following databases: EBSCO databases include: Academic Search Premier, Business Search Premier, MasterFile Premier, CINAHL (Nursing), Health Source (both Nursing/Academic and Consumer editions), AltHealth Watch. Proquest databases include: Education Journals, Nursing Journals, Criminal Justice Journals and Proquest Newspapers.

There are hundreds of publications available. If your budget doesn’t allow subscriptions to everything you want to read, this feature may be a helpful convenience. Please inform your students about this as well.

Do your students often jump on the Internet to do quick and dirty Google searches which get poor results? If your students need to update Internet searching skills, here is an excellent article to get started:

This article lists numerous links to alternate search engines, Internet directories and subject resources that are much more efficient tools to find reputable information than a basic Google search. Pay particular attention to the alternate search engines, (such as Clusty) and Internet Subject Directories, such as INFOMINE and Librarian’s Index to the Internet. These are ways to find websites that humans, not web-crawling robots, have found to be reputable.

Note that ACM Library users can access some of the mentioned items which are flagged with a $ to indicate that they require payment. ACM Library, for example, pays for a subscription to Lexis/Nexis (no. 58 in the article). As an ACM Library user you can access this resource for free.

Look for more information about other alternatives to Google in future issues of this newsletter.

If your students struggle with citing resources appropriately there is new help to make it easier. Two of the major database publishers now have online citation help for each specific article the user retrieves.

In the online databases published by ProQuest (see list below),* the user must first click on the title link of a record from the result list of a search. Then, if the user clicks on the “Cite this” tab on the yellow tool bar above or below the record, a window pops up with a drop-down menu to choose the format (APA, MLA, etc.). A window with the formatted citation then pops up to be printed or saved. There is also a link to specific instructions for each format.

In the Ebsco databases (see list below),** the user must first click on the title link in the results list. Then, by clicking on either the print or save links below the green Ebsco tool bar, a window will pop up with a drop-down menu to choose the style format (APA, MLA, etc.). Once the format is selected, click on either print or save. Another window with the formatted citation will pop up. Note this will not work if you use the print or save buttons on your browser tool bar…or if you are viewing a pdf document in Adobe Reader. It works only when you are in the citation record.

Any questions? Feel free to ask any ACM Librarian to demonstrate these features for you or your students. Remember, too, to encourage your students to visit the How to Do Research Page on our ACM Library web site at www.allegany.edu/library . There is additional useful information on how to cite there.

*ProQuest databases: Education Journals; Nursing Journals; Criminal Justice Periodicals; Newspaper Index; Psychology Journals
**Ebsco databases: Academic Search Premier; Masterfile Premier; ERIC; CINAHL; Health Source/Nursing; Health Source/Consumer; Alternative Health Watch; Business Source Premier.

When was the last time you had “the talk” with your students? The talk about plagiarism, that is. Part of being an information literate individual is knowing-- not just how to access and use information--but to do so ethically. Avoiding plagiarism should be an important concept for all students to understand.

Do you know that ACM has a number of pages of information on plagiarism on our website? There are several links from the ACM Library’s How to Do Research page. Click on Citing Sources and Understanding Plagiarism:
http://www.allegany.edu/plagiarism/

Teach your students and insist that they learn to use information ethically. If citing resources is intimidating, the ACM Library staff can assist students to learn how to do so.