Students will be able to:

Ely Library Westfield State College

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Subject-Specific Information Instruction Classes
Upper-Level and Research Session Objectives

Using a variety of educational approaches, Librarians teaching these sessions will support research- and upper-level course and assignment goals defined by faculty as well as accommodating the differing needs and learning styles of individuals. These sessions will build off the required ENGL 101 Component, moving from General sources to Subject-Specific sources. The following objectives will be adapted on a course by course basis in collaboration with faculty.

Students will be able to:

Define the Question or Information Need:

Categories	Examples
Identify the Main Concept	Controlled Vocabulary = Subject Headings
Identify the Currency of Information needed:	Within the last week/year/decade/century/or earlier?
Determine the type(s) of information needed:	Who, What, Where, When, How (Background; Biographical; Comprehensive, etc.)
Determine the type(s) of publication needed:	Periodicals, Books, Web Sources, etc.

Identify resources necessary to find the following types of information as required by the topic:

Information Need:	Types of Publication:	Finding Tools:
Background; Biographical Information, Summaries	Reference Books	Ely Library Catalog & Subject Specific Guides to Reference Books
Recent Research and Analysis	Scholarly Journals	Subject - Specific Databases
Popular Viewpoint	Magazines, Newspapers; Web Pages	General Databases; Search Engines
Historical Analysis	Books	Ely Library Catalog
Comprehensive Research & Analysis	Books; Journal Articles; Scholars in the Field	Ely Library Catalog, Other Catalogs; Databases; Directories & Affiliated Web Sites
Statistics and Current Events	Web Pages; Weekly News Magazines	Search Engines; WWW Directories; General Databases

Identify and locate a periodical article index in a specific academic subject area (e.g. Psychology).

Open the subject-specific database (e.g. PsycInfo) and retrieve an article citation using the appropriate controlled vocabulary.
Print out a list of citations or complete articles if available in full-text.
Interpret a citation to identify the source of the article.
Locate a specific journal title in Ely Library.
Use the appropriate tools to find out if the journal / magazine / newspaper is available in Ely Library or is accessible in a different electronic database.

Evaluate the usefulness of material retrieved using the following criteria:

Currency	Coverage
Authority	Objectivity or Purpose
Accuracy	Documentation

Name at least two ways of obtaining a book or article which is not available in Ely Library. (Interlibrary Loan, Use another library in the area, Go to a bookstore)

Page created & maintained by Corinne Ebbs
Last updated 7/31/05