SYLLABUS--IIST 605 INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES Spring 2016 Mondays 4:15-7:05, Husted 302

Instructor: Steve Black [email protected] or [email protected] (I try to check my UAlbany mail daily, but I check my Saint Rose e-mail more frequently) (518) 458-5494 My office is in The College of Saint Rose library, at 392 Western Ave. I am normally in at least 9-4 Monday-Friday, plus some Sundays and evenings. You are welcome to visit! If you travel a long distance to Albany, check ahead to be sure I'll be available.

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES The overall objective of this course is to prepare students to understand and perform reference and information work in libraries. This course introduces students to a range of information sources and the history, philosophy, and practice of reference services. By the end of the semester, students should be able to:  choose appropriate information sources to answer reference questions  understand best practices of reference interviewing and developing effective search strategies  describe methods and challenges of connecting library patrons to the most appropriate information sources  explain the role of reference services in helping patrons become information literate  describe methods and challenges of promoting reference services  discuss current issues in reference services, including policy issues in various library settings.

READINGS See “Assignments” below. There is no textbook to buy for this class. Please have the following documents with you in class to refer to as needed:

RUSA Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians, http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/resources/guidelines/professional.cfm.

RUSA Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers, http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidelinesbehavioral

Association of College & Research Libraries, Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency

Framework for Information Literacy http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

ATTENDANCE POLICY

All students are expected to be to class on time, to stay the entire class period, to pay attention, and to actively participate in class. I will take attendance at the beginning and end of each class, each counts equally. Attendance and participation in class activities counts for 6% of course grade. If you have a laptop, please bring it to class. 1 GRADING STANDARDS

Letter Percentage Performance indicators score A 96-100 Complete, thorough, and accurate. Exemplary expression of both the spirit and letter of the assignment; clearly shows intellectual engagement with the material. A- 90-95 Complete and well written, with very few errors. Clearly expresses comprehension of the topic. B+ 85-89 Mostly well done and competently written, but contains a few errors and/or does not express understanding of important aspects of the topic. B 80-84 Mostly complete and competently done, but has some errors and/or neglects to address important aspects of the topic. B- 75-79 Substantially completed and displays understanding, but with multiple errors or omissions. C+ 70-74 Partially completed and/or contains substantial errors C 60-69 Incomplete and/or with numerous errors or omissions. E 0-59 Very poorly done, displaying minimal effort

Grades on late reader responses will be reduced by 25%. Assignments more than a day late will be reduced by half. Incompletes for the course will be given only under truly extraordinary circumstances.

POLICY ON STUDENTS WORKING TOGETHER Librarianship is a collaborative, collegial profession. As such, I encourage you to discuss the readings as much as you would like with your peers, but of course the wording of your work must be your own. Naturally, the University's policy on academic honesty applies to this course. Part of that policy reads "Plagiarism includes . . .submission of another student's work as one's own." Working together on the “What’s the best source” assignment is allowed, but "together" is defined as being physically in the same time & place. Dividing the work, as in “you do the odd ones and I’ll do the even ones” is NOT allowed. If you work together with someone, write a note at the beginning of your assignment indicating who you worked with and what you did together.

ASSIGNMENTS Please submit assignments on white paper, stapled in the upper left corner, with your name at the top of the first page.

READER RESPONSES (28% OF GRADE (4% EACH), DUE DATES LISTED BELOW) Respond to each of the following assigned readings in approximately 500 words. Include 1) what you found most interesting, 2) what the most important points are for the practice of librarianship, 3) at least one question you'd ask the author if they visited our class. If there is anything you disagree with, include that and explain why. We will discuss these readings as an integral part of the class on the day each is due, so it’s essential to complete these reader responses on time.

2 Green, Samuel S. Personal Relations Between Librarians and Readers, American Library Journal, no. 1, Nov. 1876, 74-81. Online at http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/jrichardson/DIS220/personal.htm. Due Feb. 1

Rolla, P.J. (2009). User Tags versus Subject Headings, Library Resources and Technical Services, 53(3), 174-184. Due Feb. 8

Magi, Trina J. and Patricia E. Mardeusz. (2013). Why Some Students Continue to Value Individual, Face-to-Face Research Consultations in a Technology-Rich World, College & Research Libraries 74(6), 605-618. OR Pattee, A. S. (2008). What do You Know? Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children, 6(1), 30-39. Due Feb. 15 Dewdney, P., & Michell, G. (1996). Oranges and Peaches: Understanding Communication Accidents in the Reference Interview. RQ, 35(4), 520-23,526-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20862995 Due Feb. 22 Ross, Catherine S. and Patricia Dewdney. Negative Closure: Strategies and Counter-strategies in the Reference Transaction, Reference & User Services Quarterly, v. 38, no. 2, 1998, 151- 163. Due March 7

Trott, Barry and Isabel Silver. (2014). Outreach Activities for Librarian Liaisons. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 54(2), 8-14. OR Burke, S. K., & Strothmann, M. (2015). Adult Readers’ Advisory Services through Public Library Websites. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 55(2), 132-143. Due March 28 Tyckoson, D. A. (2012). Issues and Trends in the Management of Reference Services: A Historical Perspective. Journal of Library Administration, 52(6/7), 581-600. doi:10.1080/01930826.2012.707953. Due April 11 CLASS PRESENTATION/TEACHING EXERCISE (20% OF GRADE, MARCH 21-APRIL 18 [INDIVIDUAL TIMES WILL BE ASSIGNED BY FEB. 15] ) Make a presentation to class on a searching technique, and have your classmates do an exercise to practice the skill. The exercise must require them to find specific thing(s), using the instructions and directions you provide them. Your demonstration/instructions should take no more than 5 minutes. Design the exercise so your classmates can complete it in 10 minutes.

Suggested skills to present and have fellow students complete an exercise:

Find an appropriate LCSH term for a topic Find an appropriate ERIC Thesaurus term for a topic Find an appropriate PsycINFO Thesaurus term for a topic Use MeSH to find a specific descriptor, e.g. Carcinogens--pharmacokinetics Difference in MLA International Bibliography between Thesaurus and Names as Subjects When and how to use Boolean operator NOT Search by classification code in Sociological Abstracts Search by classification code in PsycINFO Use e-discover to search within a particular journal, e.g. College & Research Libraries Use e-discover to limit results by geographical region Use the index function in a database to do an author search 3 When and how to use the "times cited by" feature in PsycINFO When and how to use the "citing articles" feature in ScienceDirect How to find company financial data Use the West Key number system to find court cases on a specific topic Use Journal Citation Reports (in the Web of Science) to identify the most-cited journals in a discipline Find an obituary in the New York Times--ProQuest Historical Newspapers Find a specific article in the Wall Street Journal--ProQuest Historical Newspapers Use AtoZMaps to find a special-purpose map (e.g. a tree or bird species distribution map) Use Book Review Digest to find reviews of a book How to use Reader's Guide Retrospective to find articles on a topic published before 1920 Use advanced search in SpringerLink Find information about a journal or magazine in Ulrich's International Periodical Directory (aka Ulrichsweb)

RESEARCH PAPER (23% of grade, due April 25)

Write a research paper of 8-12 pages that cites a minimum of 6 sources from scholarly journals. It may be on any topic directly relevant to information sources and services. Your research paper must be original work you complete for this class (don’t redo prior work from another class). Find and read published articles relevant to your topic. Develop a clear thesis and synthesize the information you have found. Critically analyze the works you cite, do not simply summarize.

Be sure to include in your search the following journals, and browse the most recent year of each of these to check for relevant research.

Reference and User Services Quarterly College & Research Libraries portal: Libraries and the academy Journal of Academic Librarianship

If you choose a topic that is specific to school, public, or special libraries, let me know and we will agree on an alternate list of "must read" journals.

WHAT’S THE BEST SOURCE? (23% of Grade, Due May 2 [last day of class]) This assignment is a combination of a "scavenger hunt" and a compare/contrast exercise. For each of the following mock reference questions, find the best answer you can using Google, Wikipedia, and library resources linked from http://library.albany.edu/, including the Minerva catalog. For each question, write the answer found in each of the three sources. If the answer is not straightforward, describe the ifs, ands, and buts. For the library resources, specify what you used. Then compare and contrast the quality of answers in you found in Google, Wikipedia, and library resources.

1. How much does the CEO of General Electric make in total compensation a year? 2. I want to read up on the diagnosis and treatment of dementia. 3. How much cabbage is grown for sale in New York State? 4. What are the most important and prestigious astronomy journals? 5. What did reviewers have to say about Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when it was first published? 6. Which breeds of pigs make the best pets? 4 7. Who was Albert Leary Gihon (born Sept. 28, 1833)? 8. What type of national government does Bhutan have? 9. What are didjeridus made of? 10. My 10 year old niece loves horses. She reads a little below her grade level. Can you recommend a few books about horses that might get her reading more? 11. Why are races on tracks run counter clockwise? 12. What is Lillian Virginia Mountweazel famous for? 13. What was the “City Beautiful Movement”? 14. What is the origin of the phrase “the whole nine yards”? 15. What were/are the worst invasive species of all time?

5 STEVE BLACK’S IST 605 CALENDAR FALL 2014

Date Class topics (We’ll also have some guest Assignment due speakers TBA). Jan. 25 Introduction; pros and cons of discovery services Feb. 1 History of reference; transitioning from Green, Samuel S. Personal print to online reference sources; library Relations Between Librarians and catalogs and WorldCat; making best use of Readers searchable fields Feb. 8 Authority control and controlled Rolla, “User Tags versus Subject vocabulary; browsing, searching, following Headings” citations Feb. 15 Fundamentals of reference interviewing; Magi & Mardeusz, Why Some ready reference sources; literature sources Students Continue to Value… OR Pattee, “What do You Know?” Feb. 22 RUSA Behavioral Guidelines government Dewdney & Michell, “Oranges sources and Peaches” Feb. 29 RUSA professional competencies; Special guidelines for medical and legal information; medical sources; biography sources March 7 LibGuides, online tutorials, virtual reference Ross & Dewdney, “Negative Closure” March 14 SPRING BREAK, no class March 21 Psychosocial aspects of reference; presentations/teaching exercises March 28 Liaison work; reader’s advisory; marketing Trott & Silver, "Outreach reference services; presentations/teaching Activities…" OR Burke & exercises Strothmann, “Adult Readers’ Advisory Services. . . “ April 4 Assessing the effectiveness of reference and collections; music and art sources; presentations/teaching exercises April 11 Information Literacy Standards; modes of Tyckoson, D. A. Issues and instruction; presentations/teaching exercises Trends in the Management of Reference Services April 18 Information Literacy Framework; presentations April 25 Share and discuss findings from research Research Paper paper May 2 Sharing and discussion of “What’s the Best What’s the Best Source? Source?”

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