Information Literacy Subcommittee Minutes

COMMONWEALTH VIRTUAL LIBRARY
CVL Information Literacy Subcommittee Meeting
October 6, 1998 1:30 - 3:30
CPE Board Room

PRESENT: Hannelore Rader (Chair), Janet Brewer, Jill Buckland, Edith Hansen, Louann Hardy, Stacey Nickell, Carol Nutter, Rebecca Turner, Haiwang Yuan, Miko Pattie

ABSENT: Neata Wiley

GUEST: Steve Stone

1. Introduction:

1.1. Steve Stone, Electronic Resources Librarian from UK, joined the group to discuss the pilot project proposal UK has submitted to CVU on "Doing Research in the Virtual Library".

1.2. Hannelore announced that the grant proposal UofL submitted on behalf of SAALCK on "Train the Trainers" did not get funded. She would like to resubmit it in March'99 with input from this group.

1.3. Hannelore encouraged the group to have direct liaison with the KLA Library Instruction Round Table. Stacey is the current chair and all members of this group are involved with the Round Table.

2. Tutorial Discussions:

2.1. Miko gave a briefing on the decision made by the Steering Committee about WebZ common interface for the databases. She also reported that selections of CVL databases depended on how much funding there would be available. The 98/99 CVU/CVL budget will be officially approved by the CPE on November 9.

2.2. What is the objective of the tutorial?

The first phase was to develop a tutorial for the databases for the end users. We need to teach the users how to search (search strategies). We need to think of the end users who had no other assistance than the tutorial itself. It has to be simple and attractive, having in mind that users seldom if ever read textual tutorials. We have to anticipate the users' questions. Training the trainers would be needed so all librarians know how to help users when problems arise. Possibilities of making a link to real person "Help Desk" online were discussed, knowing that it would not be an easy task.

2.3. How to put it together?

All agreed that it was not necessary to create a tutorial for each of the databases. Instead, a generic tutorial could be developed according to subject areas such as humanities and sciences. However, it would be hard for such an approach to reconcile with the idiosyncrasies of each databases. It was also suggested that the tutorial would only have to deal with WebZ interface. The tutorial will be on the homepage of the CVL, which is part of the CVU.

2.4. Rebecca's and Jill's tutorial outline:

Members reviewed this and considered it to be a starting point, something on which the tutorial can be based. It was made clear that we must focus on our CVL students, our primary clientele. 2.5. Budget:

Miko distributed the budget proposal the DLAC discussed at its Sept. meeting. It was based on the top-level funding proposed by the CVL Steering Committee. For Information Literacy, the allotment is $250K a year.

3. UK' Proposal:

Members reviewed Steve's proposal for publishing a generic tutorial for research basics on the Web instead of re-inventing the wheel. There would be templates so that other libraries can tweak it to fit their own needs. As part of the proposal, Steve suggested video conferences to show and test the project to save members' travels.

4. Next Step:

All agreed that specialists and technicians will be needed to work on the design details while the CONTENTS and STRATEGIES had to come from the Subcommittee. There will be 4 modules of contents and assignments are:

4.1. Basics (Stacey and Janet):

Formulate search strategies Brain-storming
Identify different resources
Appropriate information
Citation

4.2. How WebZ, the integrated interface, works (Jill and Steve)

4.3. Advanced Search (Rebecca and Edith):

Control for vocabulary
Boolean
Subject search

4.4. Evaluation (Haiwang and Carol):

Currency
Authenticity
Objectivity
Popular vs scholarly
Evaluation of citations

Requirement for the assignment:

Not just a list. A short paragraph of explanation with even a sample is desirable. Look at other sites. Do not have to re-invent the wheel.

Deadline to turn in the assignments:

End of October.

5. Next Meeting: