About the Required Things

Being shy about my physical appearance, it took a while to decide on an idealized, yet realistic avatar with unrealistic, but beautiful dreams, right. That and not having made one before -- What strikes me most about information literacy in practice here in a high school library vis-a-vis my library training background is how down to the wire one must go to have any impact. The students have plenty of exposure to sources of information, especially online, but a short attention span in general (exceptions abound, too) when it comes to conducting on organized search for a project on hand. Repetition works when few choice options are given; the number of choices is so overwhelming to students. Library school teaches appreciation of solid databases, like those by Ebsco, to find out about practically anything you want to know, but kids mistakenly think using them takes labor -- well no, and I saw some students using Jstor, great, it has pretty general stuff, not that scholarly or anything. Hey, somebody did go and organize information, one doesn't have to flail around so much on the web, what a revelation!

I like the Website Evaluation handout from the October 10th meeting with a clear set of questions, and short.

Start

My excitement at actually being asked to do a blog in a real blog community was somewhat tempered by minor practical glitches, but I shall not go there. The lingering jet lag is finally lifting, and I'm going onward full tilt under the tutelage of Her Majesty here in the library, whom I recently heard talking about Thing 14, reliable online resources, convincingly to a class, and Thing 13, subscription databases. They are, as usual, underused by students and it takes some persuasion to convert students to using them, as easy as they are and available. - Now, let's see if this comment actually posts before I go onward with pics and stuff.