| Abstrakt: |
This article presents a sample assignment for developing awareness and use of library resources in undergraduate sociology. Information retrieval skills and library instruction can be integrated meaningfully into the curriculum, particularly into sociology, from a student's first semester to the last. From semester to semester, however, assignments must be modified to meet students' needs and increasing abilities more exactly. Assignments also must be altered in order to make better use of new information sources as they become available and to teach the newer electronic information retrieval skills that are needed as resources change from one medium to another. The handout on library resources also requires annual updating as new materials are acquired and as information sources shift bases within the library's holdings. Certainly some work is involved in starting up class projects such as these. In some ways it is easier to simply assume that students know the library and then to assign a traditional term paper. This approach, however, leaves to someone else the task of teaching students to use the library and learn information retrieval skills, someone who may or may not cover the sociological knowledge and skills you want students to acquire. |
