How to get students started with research – Best Academic Library Websites 2012 — Part III

In an effort to provide bewildered undergraduates with a road map through the impossibly convoluted, non-intuitive, and dis-integrated world of library resources, many academic libraries have added “getting started with research” pages to their sites. This is a good thing! But too many of these guides only make the research process even more intimidating by presenting the novice user with dense, jargon-laden pages of text.

Here is another approach. Create interactive, user-friendly tutorials that gently guide students through the research process in small, easy steps. Avoid Librarianese. Use lots of images and video and yes, even some humor. And break the research process into short modules that allow students to skip directly to the information they need.

Check out some great examples of this model:

University of North Carolina Greensboro

 

 

 

University of the Pacific

 

 

 

University of California

 

 

 

York University

 

 

 

Stonybrook University

 

 

 

Oregon State University

 

 

 

Here is an interesting tutorial for higher-level researchers, from the University of London:

Senate House Libraries

3 thoughts on “How to get students started with research – Best Academic Library Websites 2012 — Part III

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *