In the Fall quarter students will be introduced to the skills needed to find Information in the library of the 21st Century. The class will develope the student's ability to access, sift through, collect, manipulate, analyze, compare, and evaluate information. Lecture and exercise sessions will cover the Library of Congress subject headings for chemistry and physics, important reference sources, keyword and browse searching in DYNIX and WLN, using paper and automated indexes to find journal articles, analyzing and evaluating what is found, understanding the structure of scientific articles, preparing citations and annotated bibliographies, usefulness of the Sound and Image Library, and an overview of fee-based on-line information sources and the Internet. During winter quarter students will expand on the searching skills they learned in the fall quarter focusing on fee based and free online information sources. Lectures and exercise sessions will cover the DIALOG and STN information services, and significant chemistry, physics, and general science data resources available at various institutional and governmental sites on the Internet.
Students will be selecting their research projects during the first week of the fall quarter. The library research module is aimed at helping students do their literature survey on this research project. The laboratory work will be done during winter and spring quarters.
This module is taught by library reference staff. Our library liason this year will be Sara Rideout. The contents of the module may change based on the library facilities available and the needs of the students.