Connections 1

Introduce students to discovering and exploring scholarly books.  It is likely first-semester students have had little-to-no experience with: library catalog searching; interpreting bibliographic data; locating books using the Library of Congress Classification System; assessing a book; and using a book other than a novel or a textbook—and understanding that through consulting the table-of-contents and index, they might only read select portions of the book.

The librarian will design a customized exercise for exploring: the library catalog/Discover; bibliographic records; the stacks; and books.  The exercise concludes with a group discussion.

Library Catalog/Discover, Stacks, and Book Exploration:
Working with a partner, perform the following two searches in the library catalog/Discover on the topic statement assigned to you for the workshop:  [Each pair has a different, simple topic statement, e.g. masculinity and family ]

Access the F&M Library Web Site:  library.fandm.edu > click on “Advanced Search”

Keyword search: # of results: _____              Subject search: # of results: _____

[Librarian now engages all in a brief discussion Re: Why the result sets differ.]

[Librarian now invites one pair of students to share the title of a book the students consider interesting.  Librarian then performs a title search in the catalog in order to display the catalog record on the library classroom screen—then s/he invites the students and professor to help interpret the bibliographic data: author, title, publisher, subject headings, notes/contents, library location/call #, availability, &c.]

From the list of books retrieved through one of your searches, select one title that looks relevant and interesting, and go into the stacks/book shelves to find the book, grab it, and bring it back to the library classroom.

While in the stacks, write down the following information for a book located on the shelf next to the book for which you went searching:

Title: _________________________                                    Call #:  _______________________

[When all students have returned to the library classroom, the librarian invites them to read out loud the title of the book they brought back with them and the title of the book they recorded.  Also invite students to explain why they chose the book they retrieved, and to share what they noticed about the books on the shelf nearby.]

[Librarian and professor now invite students to engage in exploring the books they retrieved—consider: Who is the author?  Publisher?  How best to use the book—via the table of contents?  Index?  Explain, as appropriate, that reading the entire book may not be necessary…]