© 2008 Gatsby Technical Education Projects. This page may be copied solely for use in the purchaser’s school or college. /
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Outcomes
Students will be able to:
- compare paper and print with electronic media
- locate resources in a library
- use information research skills
- discuss the impact of information storage
technologies on their own learning.
Time required
Allow 1 to 2 hours, depending on the extent of discussion.
Outline of the activity
Students carry out searches for information to develop information research skills. These searches can be done in the context of the current topic being studied. Finally, there are opportunities to discuss issues of the information revolution.
Part 1 involves searching for information in the library, and finding out about serial numbers of books and journals.
It might be helpful to point out the existence of ISBN and ISSN numbers, how these are subject to international agreement, and how they are useful for ordering books and journals whether from a library or from a shop.
In Part 2 students learn about research skills from the British Library web site, search in the British Library catalogue, and learn about refining their search.
Part 3 could be a collaborative piece of work carried out for homework / private study. One or two students should be responsible for collecting information from the class and producing the resource.
Discussion could be structured by allocating one or two questions to small groups or pairs of students, who then report back on their discussion. If students become more aware of living through an unprecedented information revolution and the impact of this on all areas of life, including their own learning, then the activity will have achieved a great deal. If class time can not be allocated to discussion of all these questions, some of them could be given for homework for individuals or pairs to discuss and write about.
In preparation for the activity:
The teacher should ascertain whether students have already had an introduction to the library and its structure in the past year or so, and the extent to which this specifically related to science and technology resources (as opposed to the arts and humanities). The level of the students’ sophistication in using cataloguing systems and information retrieval methods should also be established.
The teacher should ensure that the library the students are to use actually carries the books or journals to which the students have been referred to in this activity. If not, alternative resources will have to be substituted
The librarian should be informed about the activity which is expected to take place in the library. They might even be invited to participate. Involvement of the librarian greatly contributes towards building healthy working teacher / librarian and student / librarian relationships.
The librarian’s talk must be short and to the point so that the students do not lose patience, particularly since this activity is mainly about students becoming actively familiarised with locating books in the library and the methods of classifying them.
The information revolutionFurther information
Today books and articles can be located in the library through a computerised catalogue by typing only key words, thus answering the problem of rapidly locating specific information from databases. However, though the computerised catalogue supplies information on the location of a book or an article, for the most part (at least for reference books) it is necessary to go to the correct bookshelf in order physically to get to the book. Therefore we have to know the method of cataloguing and how to locate a book on the bookshelf.
We might compare locating a certain book in the library to locating a person who lives in London. If we want to visit them where they live, we don’t simply go into the street and call their name! We have to know the name and location of the neighbourhood they live in, the name of the street, the number of the house, and even the number of the flat. In a similar way, a Dewey number gives us specific information about where the book is located in the library.
The library generally includes two main sections:
1. Fiction books
2. Non-fiction books, text books and reference books
Fiction books are arranged on the shelves alphabetically according to author’s name. Non–fiction books are arranged in the library according to subject – most by the Dewey method. This activity focuses on the non-fiction books section.
When interdisciplinary subjects are involved, it is sometimes hard to decide how to classify them and to which branch to ascribe them. The Dewey method does not always give a clear enough answer to these conflicts. It is also possible that the Dewey number of a certain subject has to be changed from time to time. For example:
629 branches of engineering = section
629.1 motorised vehicles = sub–section
629.13 aviation
629.138 space flight (old number) – this entry had to be given a new sub–section of its own
(629.4 space flight) when space flight became more common, with an increase in the amount of printed matter on the subject.
In other words, the classification must be constantly updated. In many countries there is a national committee for matters of decimal classification which receives suggestions for changes and innovations and passes them on to a Centre in The Netherlands. From there proposed corrections are sent to experts in the different fields of interest and only after general agreement is the correction or innovation published in the bulletin, ‘Corrections and Expansions to Decimal Classification’. The Dewey method is equally common in very large public libraries and in school or small neighbourhood libraries throughout the world.
Students should identify – on the basis of their familiarity with the Dewey method of classification and cataloguing – the sub-divisions and the sections and the sub-subjects by which the books on the bookshelf are arranged and list this for themselves. For example:
540Chemistry
571Human Physiology
576Genetics and Evolution
577Ecology
580Botany
590Zoology
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The information revolution: briefing sheet
In this activity you will use information research skills and discuss the impact of information storage systems on your own learning.
There are different estimates of the rate at which the total amount of information stored in the world is increasing. In some specialist subjects, including large parts of the sciences, the quantity of information is reckoned to double every 18 months.
Part 1 Books and journals
1 Visit your school or college library and locate the text books which may be useful for Science in Society. Familiarise yourself with the books available, so you know where to look for information you might need in the future. Look up one key term relevant to your current study in the index of a selected book. Note the book title, author and page number, along with one new fact you have discovered on that page.
2 Locate one text book relevant to your current area of study. Find the ISBN number on the back of this book. Find out what ISBN stands for, and how this number might be useful to you.
3 What type of publication has an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)? Who issues ISSN numbers?
Part 2 The British Library
4 Go to the home page of the British Library. (You can use the link from the LSS web site, or search in Google.)
5 Search on ‘British Library research skills’. Explore the links from this page.
6 Choose one important and interesting point that is new to you, and you would like to share with others. Make a note of the key information, including the full URL. Share the information with others. Discuss as a class the usefulness or interest–value of the information.
Narrowing a search
7 Return to the research skills page. Click on Using The British Library. Click on the Catalogue hyperlink. Click on Search the Integrated Catalogue. Type a key term relating to your current topic of study, such as Cholera, John Snow or germ theory. How many results or records did you obtain? Try another search, more tightly specified, by adding a second key term. For example, try Cholera John Snow, or Semmelweiss germ theory.
© 2008 Gatsby Technical Education Projects. This page may be copied solely for use in the purchaser’s school or college. /1 of 2
Boolean search
The information revolution: briefing sheetTry using a Boolean search technique to find what you need in the British Library catalogue. This technique can be used in any Internet search engine.
‘Boolean operators’ are link words which combine multiple search terms.
The three most common link words are: AND, OR, NOT.
AND
Narrows a search
Looks for articles containing both keywords
You may need to enter AND or + (plus symbol)
Using AND or + gives results which contain both the
key terms you search for.
Using OR gives you either or both of the terms you searched on. NOT excludes a term from a search.
8 Draw Venn diagrams like the one above for OR and NOT Boolean searches on two terms.
9 Use a Boolean technique to narrow yoursearch on your chosen topic.
10 When your search returns fewer than 10 records, have a look in more detail at each one (by clicking on the title). How many of them are books and how many are articles in journals? How can you tell?
Part 3 Discussion
11 Discuss whether there are some types of information you prefer to access electronically, and others which you prefer in print.
12 Which is most reliable, electronic or paper information storage?
13 In an age of electronic information storage, how important is it to store knowledge in your own head? Is it more important to have information in your own memory, or to know how to find the information from other storage? (It might help to think about different professionals, such as doctors, teachers, scientists, lawyers, journalists and engineers.) Does this have significance for your own study?
© 2008 Gatsby Technical Education Projects. This page may be copied solely for use in the purchaser’s school or college. /1 of 2
© 2008 Gatsby Technical Education Projects. This page may be copied solely for use in the purchaser’s school or college. /
1 of 2
© 2008 Gatsby Technical Education Projects. This page may be copied solely for use in the purchaser’s school or college. /
1 of 2