Putting LC Call Numbers in Order: The Game

Need a break?  Try something relaxing, like playing a quick game of placing library books in proper order according to their Library of Congress Classification System call numbers.  Look at this webpage on Understanding Call Numbers if you need a refresher. 

Do you ever teach others how to use call numbers?  Does it go something like this?

First, remember to place them in order alphabetically.  When a call number begins with one letter, it comes before another that has two letters: N before NA, for example.  Then, look at the numbers.  Count up from the number  one: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 45, 100, 101, 789, 1001, etc.  Third, notice the decimal .5 comes before .52, which also precedes .6, since it is a decimal.

• N100.C45 comes before NA99.A33
• N100.C45 comes before N100.5A32
• N100.C45 comes before N100.C5

Now play the call number game if you have not done so already.  Thankfully the Lewis-Clark State College Library has made this game available after it disappeared from elsewhere.  Michael Ford, formerly at the University of Pittsburgh, created the game originally.  Once he moved on, his game became unavailable on the U. of Pittsburgh's website.

Browse the Library of Congress Classification Outline.  Drill down the outline to see how the narrower topics shoot off from the broader ones.

An Aside
In looking for the links to the Library of Congress, I discovered a very brief message from Clint Eastwood, America's tough guy.  He encourages the viewer, you and me, to make our day by reading a book: Clint Eastwood video.  We are talking about finding books in the catalog and on the shelves today in the ACAD 1199 class I am teaching.  This video seems like an appropriate one to start the class. 

It seems like a good idea to teach about keyword Boolean searching, subject heading searching, and understanding call numbers.  Ideally, students will leave the class more confident searching the catalog and finding books on the shelves.

If you teach library instruction classes, what have you done to instruct students in searching your library's catalog?

New Books in the Library

Most academic libraries buy books. Yes, they often buy lots and lots of books in order to support ongoing research. Depending on the discipline, some fields of study publish more books than others. For example, hundreds of titles get published in English, history, art, philosophy, political science, and so on. Generally speaking, the hard sciences, such as biology, medicine, engineering, mathematics, do not publish quite as many books. These disciplines tend to publish their research findings predominantly in scholarly and peer-reviewed journals.

In many cases, patrons of academic libraries can browse some of the new books in a reading room. (Admittedly, not all new books go onto the "New Books" shelf. Typically, the most attractive or eye-catching titles go on the "New Books" shelf.) Some professors like to view the recent acquisitions in the Library, especially if they have helped with the selection of the titles.


New books can also be browsed online in many library catalogs. Below is a link to a tutorial that shows how to browse new books with the Eli M. Oboler Library's catalog:
New Books in ISU's Oboler Library. Another link to this tutorial can be found on the Eli M. Oboler Library Tutorials site.

The tutorial suggests that students can browse new book titles to discover potential research projects. It seems that deciding on a topic remains one of the biggest problems students face in the research process. If they wait too long, then they will not have enough time to research the topic, they will not become as interested, and they final result may not be quite as polished.

On the other hand, browsing the new books might introduce them to a subject that piques their interest. If they go and check out a new book, then they may only need to go and find a few more sources, thus saving them time. This strategy could save them time, especially if they utilized the list of references (the bibliography) within the book. A simple title search could save time, where a keyword search might take a bit longer. Additionally, like I often express in teaching situations, if they find a "new" book they like, they can go to the shelf where that book will be located after it is no longer "new" and look around to see other books on that same topic, thus expediting the search process even further.

Finding Dissertations & Theses

In the last two months I have been working on a tutorial that incorporates an audio component. The Instructional Technology Resource Center or ITRC helped me download Adobe Presenter software, which allows me to add audio to a PowerPoint Presentation. They allow faculty and staff on campus to publish these audio presentations to their servers.

It really was not as difficult as I feared that it would be. I created a tutorial on finding dissertations and theses at Idaho State University: http://breeze1.isu.edu/dissertations. It begins with a brief overview of the the ProQuest database, Dissertations and Theses--A&I, which can really be a useful source for finding graduate studies on all kinds of subjects. Abstracts and full citations appear with other information, such as the names of committee members. They also provide options for purchasing a copy in various formats, beginning at $34.00. It is a good place to start when doing graduate research and discovering research that has already been done, so you do not duplicate your efforts.

Then I go through the steps of securing a dissertation via Interlibrary Loan. Colleagues in the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) department like to emphasize that a thesis or dissertation is considered a book, and requestors need to remember this.

Not all institutions allow their theses and dissertations to be borrowed; however, researchers do have the opportunity to purchase a copy through the Dissertation Service. They just need to fill out a Purchase a Thesis/Dissertation Form. A photocopy of the book will be made and sent to the proper persons; their university account will be billed $29.00.

Finally, I conclude the tutorial with tips on how to found in-house theses and dissertations at ISU's Oboler Library. The Library's catalog still serves as a great tool (and probably the only tool) for browsing ISU's theses and dissertations online. Using keywords such as "thesis 'idaho state'" will allow anyone to browse all the theses and dissertations. It so happens that even for the dissertations the keyword "thesis" works, since the bibliographic record contains a note, saying it is a "Thesis" for a doctoral degree, or a doctoral thesis.

If grad students or faculty want to limit the results to a specific department, then they can just add the name of that department to the Keyword Boolean or Quick search: "thesis 'idaho state' anthropology." This will retrieve more results than a search on the subject heading. For example, "Dissertations, Academic--Idaho State University. Dept. of Political Science" will only retrieve 21 results, yet a Keyword Boolean search for "thesis and 'idaho state' and 'political science'" will yield 60 results. The subject headings are still relatively new, so if you also want the older titles written by former students I recommend this second search.

The tutorial, "How Can I Find Dissertations: Using ISU's Resources to Conduct More Exhaustive Research" lasts for twelve minutes and thirty-two seconds (12:32). Take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Catalog vs. Index

I have a colleague, Phil Homan, who asserts that the most important thing college students need to know about the library and finding its resources is to understand the difference between an index and a catalog. He makes some compelling points.

Phil talks about the difference between a catalog and an index. He often begins his instruction sessions with a straightforward question like: "What can you find in the library?" He writes the answers from the class on the board: books, magazines, journals, maps, CDs, DVDs, periodicals, newspapers, indexes, etc. He then asks a question like: "What will you find in journals and books?" Answers might include articles, chapters, poems, short stories, etc. The chalkboard is divided into two sections, and answers to the two questions appear on either side. Again, he asks: "What is the difference between one side and the other?" Answer: one side shows parts of a whole, and the other side shows the wholes.

At this point he says that you will find the parts in an index or database, and the wholes can be found in the catalog. Therefore, articles, poems, chapters, short stories, etc. and/or their titles will be found in an index or anthology, while titles to books, CDs, videos, magazines, newspapers, indexes, anthologies, journals, maps/atlases, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. will be found in a catalog. A library catalog, therefore, will tell you what that library has inside its building. (True, many catalogs include links to websites, especially government websites, since most of their "documents" are now "born digital.") An index will give you titles of articles, books, poems, etc., that may not be within the library itself, but which you can request via interlibrary loan.

An approach such as this seems pretty straightforward, yet it can really make sense to students and be just the thing to help them conceptualize the library and its resources.

Catalogs Contain Records about the Whole Item (This allows you to learn about as well as find items in the physical library.)

• Books
• Anthologies
• Indexes
• Maps
• Videos (DVDs, videocassettes, films, etc.)
• Journals
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• CDs
• Musical scores

Indexes Contain Records (and sometimes access to the full text) to the Parts

• Articles
• Chapters
• Topics in the books (See the end-of-book index)
• Poems
• Songs
• Short stories

"Card Catalog?"  OSU Archives.  Flickr.com.

Today's databases are article indexes; they tell you about articles that exist, offering the full citation information and usually an abstract or summary of the article.  Some article indexes provide full text, or the entire article in question.  These articles may appear in html or pdf formats.  Some databases only function as indexes and provide no full-text access to the articles: Web of Science, Biosis Previews, MLA International Bibliography, Abstracts in Anthropology, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, et al.  These are great finding tools, especially useful for graduate students and other serious researchers.

Today the instruction librarians met for a meeting. We talked about a First Year Seminar [FYS] instruction request form, which is being coded today. It includes a menu of options for the instructors in the FYS program. They are no longer required to bring their freshmen students to the library for instruction, so we hope that giving them more options and flexibility will entice them to come. Students need to feel comfortable in the library; those who do tend to succeed more than those who do not.

Anyway, two librarians graciously demonstrated signature components of their teaching sessions. The first drew an inverted triangle and began to explain the research process with the use of her illustration. Anyone starting a research project (especially a project on an unfamiliar topic) would do well to consult the reference resources. As my colleague mentioned, professors assume that students have basic background information on their topics--that they are consulting encyclopedias before doing their research, yet we librarians see that students do not take advantage of these resources--at least not the ones in print.

Students frequently hear their professors condemn encyclopedia articles as sources worthy of citing. They understand that they must cite X amount of articles and-or books, so they skip the step of consulting an encyclopedia article when it could be extremely beneficial to them in a number of ways. First, it gives them a basic backdrop for understanding the article or books they read later. Second, it can identify keywords they can use later in their database searching. Third, it contains a list of references they can then consult to further their research.

Anyway, the broad base of the triangle is where you begin the research with reference materials, such as textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. Books fill the second portion, and journal articles fill the last tip of the triangle. In sessions I have taught, I included another segment to the triangle for personal interviews and personal experience. Students ought to reference their own life experiences and compare and contrast them with the ideas encountered in their research process.

Objective: Help Freshmen Feel Comfortable w/Library Things

Today I will be teaching the First-Year Seminar [FYS] students again. In fact, I will teach the same section that I taught on Monday. We talked about plagiarism and academic honesty. This was the class where a student challenged me for plagiarizing the PowerPoint Presentation. Yesterday I taught a different group of students and led them in a discussion on academic integrity. One of my colleagues attended the session, and today she came and talked with me about how surprised she was at how rude the students acted in the class. At one point I had to say, "We will wait until the students in the back finish talking before going on with the discussion." I feel that doing this causes those students who are disruptive to understand that their peers do not appreciate having to wait for them or having them be disruptive so much.

One student in the front of the class took me off guard. He vocalized his ideas so loudly at times that it took me aback and I did not know how to respond to this behavior. I would almost say he was a bit aggressive and did not believe in the value of academic honesty. What do you do when students undermine your ideas by their attitude and comments? I think of my recent involvement in creating the Banned and Challenged Books Display. One of the quotations I read said something like, "The way to fight a bad idea is to present a better one," meaning that to repress or censor an idea really does not solve the problem.

Today I will be showing the catalog, inviting students to find a book on the shelves, and demonstrating how to use the EBSCOHost Academic Search Complete database. There's always so much to teach students. About a month ago I updated the worksheet, outline, and objectives for FYS. In our library instruction meeting we determined our objectives for the FYS sessions. The overarching objective is to help all students become comfortable using the library, especially the at-risk freshmen. We believe that pairing the students into groups of two or three would be useful in making it a more positive and stress-free experience.

More specifically, we want students to be inclined to ask for help at the Reference Desk or through our Ask-A-Librarian form. We want them to be able to search the library catalog effectively and be able to locate a book on the shelves. Sending the students out to find a book in the stacks will take time; however, if students look with another student we are hoping that it will take less time. Once they return from retrieving a book we will show them the database searching. Hopefully, there will be time to do this. Students will be completing exercises on a worksheet, so first they will conduct a few basic searches in the library catalog. I need to remember and give them some book jackets to search for a book. I've forgotten to do this in the past. Time management will be a factor. I want to include some Affluenza searches.

I better go and practice a few of the searches before heading up to the classroom.

First Tour and Catalog Introduction

Five international students came to the library for instruction on the catalog and a tour of the library. Naturally, I was a bit nervous, but I had spent the morning preparing a handout the students could work on after I had given them a brief overview of the catalog. With time I am sure my presentation will be more smooth, but today's session certainly helped me see what international students may need help with.

A lot of them just needed help finding the "Search" button. In other words, after they key in a title or search phrase they could not find the search button. They also could have just pressed the "Enter" key. I thought I had shown them the line in the expanded record indicating the subject heading, but more than one student needed help finding that. I feel I could have done better explaining the different between the expanded record and the brief listing of results. Overall, I believe they understood how to use the catalog, but I am glad I had the worksheet and allowed them to search and ask questions along the way.

I used the Vision software to demonstrate how to use the catalog. There's more I would like to learn about this program.

In the last week, our OPAC committee changed the options for the catalog search. The default on the catalog page used to be "Search by Title," but now the catalog defaults to "Quick Search." I am still learning what this means. My supervisor tells me that it is the automatic "And," so a search for "James and the Giant Peach" would search for the words "James" first then "and" then "the." Apparently, it will only search among the first 10,000 records with the word "James." I thought the students today understood and were able to find things rather well.

With time I imagine my skills at giving a tour will improve. As it was, I felt like I wandered a bit. I'm glad they asked me questions, and I'm glad I asked the student working in the Copy Center if I had forgotten something. I forgot to tell them about how to request a book or article through Inter-Library Loan, which happens to be through the Copy Center. They really seemed to enjoy the Special Collections with all of its old books, photographs, and art books [the one in the shape of a shoe in particular]. It helped to have an outline of the tour written out that I could reference along the way to remind me what to mention. Next time I need to mention how much fines are.

As I look back on the worksheet I created it seems that I should have verified that the students answered the questions correctly. How are they to know if they are doing it right? Am I assuming too much if they do not ask any questions?

Preparing for a teaching presentation

P: to instruct and persuade

Topic: library catalog, two databases, and utilizing the library and the librarian

Issue: How can I find articles and books to help me write my paper for this English class?

Claim: The library catalog and librarians can help you find resources more quickly than if you were to just wander the stacks. Learn a few nifty tools today, and you will find things more quickly that will help you become smarter faster.

Outline:

Show how to use the catalog = 13-15 minutes.

Show how to use Academic Search Elite = 11-12 minutes.

à ISU uses Academic Search Premier

Demonstrate how to use the MLA bibliography = 11-13 minutes.

à ISU has MLA International Bibliography

Total: 35-40

What should I show about the catalog?

What do students need to know about most?

How will students learn to use the catalog and databases the best?

How will students remember what I have told them?

How much repetition needs to take place in an activity like this?

What should I include in the handout?

Should I include active learning techniques?

Should I ask for feedback after the instructional session?

Plan:

• Read the “Search Tips” page on the ISU web site.
• Read the Eisenberg articles.
• Practice the instructional session.
• Spend about half an hour on this presentation each day.
• Work on this presentation for an hour or two this Saturday.
• Practice doing various searches you would like to show students.
• Think about what a freshman needs to know.

Thoughts on MLA Bibliography:

n Talk about truncation.

n Talk about narrowing a search: a search for “iraq” yielded more than 2000 results even when it limited it to articles since 2002. “iraq and bush” narrowed it down to 76 records. There are three tabs in this database. What are the other two tabs for?

n Show them the subject headings off to the right. This can be wonderful in pointing you to find articles you need but didn’t match the terms you entered. Some of the descriptors actually broaden the search, so combine terms and see if that helps to narrow the field down. Using the terms “rhetoric and composition” and “bush, george w” brought up 13 articles. The results bring back like four tabs or more. Students may be grateful to know that there are peer-reviewed journals. You probably need to explain what a peer-reviewed article is.

n Think about synonyms.

Musings:

Should I talk about peer-reviewed journal articles? I think that I should, because they need to know about this if they do not already. Make sure that you repeat this, otherwise it may not sink in. Make it clear and simple = Peer-reviewed articles means that they are more authoritative and can be trusted more for their scholarly contributions. Peer-reviewed means that professors read and critique other professors’ writings before they get published.

I like the idea of searching for something that is not terribly serious, since students might fall asleep with a subject they do not find appealing. I think the same goes for librarians. I just searched MLA for “humor and teaching” and the descriptors helped me refine the search with the following terms “humor and teaching approaches” = 16 results.