ECP Ring Leader David Dillard
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Learn how to work with Google.
Learn to work with Specialized Search Engines.
Suggested Resources like Steven J. Bell, who keeps up the Kept-Up Academic Librarian blog
Database Searching: Basic Techniques to Help Expedite Literature Reviews for Research Projects
Library Employment - Learn where to get your degree in Library Science.
Business Research The DataBase Route
Database Resources: Places to Find Business Information
Computer and Internet Information Skills for Sports
FROM RESEARCHER TO RINGLEADER: A JOURNEY "Computer in Libraries, 2001" Find Presentation Handout Here
Key to Literacy, Librarians now "Highly Endangered" By Lynn Thompson
Times Snohomish County Bureau The Seattle Times Snohomish County <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/snohomishcountynews/2003881008_librarians12n0.html
When Monroe High School librarian Lorraine Monprode took her first job, she was checking out filmstrips and
cassette tape players. She knew when a class report on World War I was due because a clutch of students
fought
over the same volume of the encyclopedia. Flash forward about 25 years. Monprode guides students researching
World War I bunkers to online resources that include video tours of actual bunkers, audio recollections of
soldiers who fought in the war, and hyperlinks to other electronic sources, all at the same time a classmate
on another library computer searches the same materials. In the age of information overload, librarians say
their skills at finding authoritative and accurate sources and helping students think critically about what
they read are more important than ever. But some districts around the state, including Darrington and
Granite
Falls, have cut librarian positions to balance their budgets. "The reality is that some districts and
principals try to get test scores up by spending more time on test-taking and less time on open-ended
projects, what we call discovery learning," said Marianne Hunter, president of the Washington Library
Media Association and a high-school librarian in Lacey, Thurston County. An American Library Association
task
force last year called school librarians "highly endangered." The task force said laying all
accountability for school success on reading and math scores denies the instructional value of libraries and
the teaching role of librarians.
For years I have noticed that most of the school teachers for K-12 grades with whom I have come in personal contact have no awareness that in Pennsylvania (and many if not most or all states), the state through public libraries provides a collection of databases from a range of subject fields that facilitate the research of teachers, students and anyone else who obtains a borrowers card from a library participating in the program. These databases provide citations and summaries of sources like articles that contain the search terms used. Some of these databases include the full text of at least some of the articles cited in the database and these databases may be accessed by library members at home with the use of their borrower card number and perhaps a PIN or password. If teachers do not know about this program, they are probably not teaching the use of electronic databases and other resources now provided by public and school libraries. This widespread lack of instruction regarding database use and search techniques tremendously increases the lack of preparation of the high school graduate for doing quality academic work and research at the college level. It makes for internet search engine users as the only method many students know for finding content for their term papers except for those who are so frustrated that they turn to term paper mills to get a paper that requires far less effort. The loss of school librarians will only exacerbate this problem tremendously, as many of these folk stand as the only fountain of wisdom for the sharing of information literacy principles and skills at the K-12 level.