Assignment: Annotated Blog Posts for Conventional Literary Research

Yesterday my students received some research training at our library. In an effort not to have them overwhelmed, I set forth a short, selected list of literary research resources on our course wiki that I want them to be sure to explore.

So I am giving them an assignment to blog about their use of three of the listed resources and to report on sources found within them. However, only two of these sources should be relevant to their own research subject; one must relate to the research of one of their peers (I require this in order to promote social learning and engagement with fellow students). The three posts should be completed by Friday, May 27, 2011 at 2:00pm.

This assignment is much like an annotated bibliography assignment, except that I am urging as much attention to their process as to the result of their search; to the tool used to find a good source, as much as that end source itself.

Library Research 2.0 (part 2)

I heard back from the librarian whose information I found and referred to in a previous post about Library Research 2.0. Here is a copy of her letter, followed by my initial query and my follow up response.

Library Research 2.0

College students today need to be bilingual in their research. On the one hand, they need to know about traditional kinds of inquiry and the rich range of resources now available online and through databases. On the other, they need to know about research that is enriched by media, social discovery, and Web 2.0 resources and methods. One might call this newer approach "Library Research 2.0." Let me show you how it works.

As soon as I used that phrase, "Library Research 2.0," I immediately asked myself, "Who else might be thinking about this?" So I Googled "Library Research 2.0," and opened up a few tabs in my Chrome browser based on the top search results. One of these led me to a Google Doc presentation, "Library Research 2.0," posted by librarian Maria Accardi. Doesn't Ms. Accardi look friendly? It certainly was friendly of her to post her presentation rather than limiting its reach to the people at her university.