Evaluation

I'm looking at my lesson plans for the research writing classes this fall and I think I'm going to try to re-write them with an eye towards evaluation all the way through the sessions. In the past I've looked at evaluation mostly during the session where we cover internet resources, but with more and more good information being available on the web and the truth that some print information is not really all that scholarly, I think it's way past time to change that.

So, beginning with the encyclopedia research article I'm looking at right now, I'm going to give students things to look at for specific sources. So like for Encyclopedias I'm going to say look at the publishers, look for authors listed on the individual articles, look for a bibliography, etc. For Journal articles they might be looking for a peer reviewed status, the names of the peer editors, a bibliography and so on.

Hopefully this will help them look at evaluation up front, and impress the need to evaluate research, facts, and figures from the beginning of the research process, not only when searching Google.

Social Bookmarking? No Problem!

Right then, so this - the this being the 'Share it' option in the right hand column half way down the page - is just so nifty.

I totally ♥ WorldCat.org. And suddenly I am aware that this is my 'professional' blog, and I should not be using little emoticons in it, but frankly saying that 'I totally love WorldCat.org' will not change my general emotion towards it.

It is very, very nifty to have such a completely simple to use catalog available for people out on the internet, and it makes me happy.

People need to be more aware of these things so libraries can stop being seen merely as repositories of books and start being viewed as nifty places of technology as well.