Reach for Reference

School Library Media Activities Monthly/Volume XXIII, Number 2/October 2006

How to Help Students Handle the Information Overload

by Barbara Ripp Safford

Gale's Junior Reference Collection (not to be confused with the Student Resource Center—Junior) is a neat and tidy group of more than fifteen reference tools in full-text with the PowerSearch interface. Previously available with a graphic icon-driven interface, the Junior Reference Collection is migrating to PowerSearch so it can be easily cross-searched with other Gale products. The content of this collection is mostly curricular and includes culture, geography, history, literature, and science (including math). The materials range in difficulty from elementary level with sources such as Junior Worldmark to middle level with U·X·L titles to the senior high level, making this a good choice for K-12 schools and for middle level schools with students of varying abilities. Biographical sources are integrated so that a person's contribution to the topic searched is included in the result lists.

Color and shape symbols for search results are used to identify the three difficulty levels, which is both easier and more sensible than very specific Lexile levels. The basic search feature can be used to search subject, keyword, or the entire document. Various search options, which can be shown or hidden, include limits to images, multimedia, or primary sources. The right side of the screen has a list of "popular" topics such as "Why do topics have to be labeled 'popular'?" "Why do we have to pander to 'popular'?" A topic tree search with six starter graphics leading to lists of suggested related topics is located below the basic search box. Another search option, the author topic tree, indicates the range of this database including authors from R. L. Stine and Judy Blume to Michael Crichton and William Shakespeare. Separate subject and advanced search screens add extra limiters such as dates, and a publication search allows limiting to a particular resource. Hit lists include articles from a variety of sources and each article title includes the material type, audience, publication date, and a sentence or two of context. Everything is full-text, and can be saved, printed, or emailed.

Information is updated often, but sometimes updates appear in one part of a topic and not in another. Keeping up to date with current events thus may present students with some confusion since more relevant hits may not have the most recent information. Related topic links on the left of the screen are often useful in tracking down other details students may need. Previous searches can be saved for later revision. Help screens are useful and include some tools for conducting research, such as suggesting how to evaluate sources.

This database, like other similar databases, provides good opportunities for library media specialists and teachers to teach students how to use digital information in effective and efficient ways. The proliferation of these digital resources as the single tool, Junior Reference Collection, has resulted in increasingly more complex search options. For a long time, we assumed that the simple keyword search was one of the skills we needed to teach. This type of searching, however, produces thousands even millions of hits. Search devices are now becoming better at determining and listing results in relevance order or, unfortunately, in the order of how much is paid to the search engine company. Because of these changes, we know that preciseness in searching for a specific need results in better retrieval than simple keyword searching ever can.

Because of these changes in search devices, students need to move beyond just identifying keywords in general and learn how to be as precise as possible. This strategy goes way beyond a KWL chart. Students need practice in browsing a general piece of information, whether that is a textbook, encyclopedia article, or website, and then extracting what they would like to know more about or explore in depth. This technique should give them ideas for words to modify the keyword, words that might mean the same as the keyword, as well as other modifiers and general terms identifying the specific topic Most important to the search process, however, is teaching students to critically analyze their search results and choose the best information for their particular needs.

The importance of teaching students effective research skills was readily apparent to me in a third grade collaborative unit that didn't work. After seventeen years as a middle school library media specialist, I switched to a K-6 environment. The third grade teacher across the hall from the library media center, Mrs. M., and I quickly became friendly, cooperative colleagues, so we decided to collaborate on an integrated library skill/classroom content unit. We spent time together planning what we thought was a great unit. I did a brainstorming topic-selection activity in the classroom and she followed with general assignment expectations.

When the children came to the library media center the first day to work as a class, we spent a few minutes reminding them about the resources they could use and how to find those resources through the catalog, and then let them go to work. In about six minutes, we all (teacher, library media specialist, library associate, and parent volunteer) realized the children were totally lost, confused, and frustrated. Mrs. M. realized the assignment was not working and told the class to go back across the hall and she would read to them until lunch time. We would try library searching another time. Later that afternoon, we sat down and added to a list that I had started, trying to pinpoint the difficulties the children were experiencing. We ended up with a list of forty-eight separate skills that students needed in order to use the catalog. I realized what elementary school students need to learn while the third grade teacher realized there are a lot of "general knowledge" skills that cannot be taken for granted.

I've been thinking about this past experience as I look at new and improved online databases. The failed third grade class assignment on searching for resources was in a small library media center with four adults helping twenty-five children use a card catalog!! It is true that some of the problems students had that day are no longer barriers to student searches—internal alphabetization, knowing which card catalog drawer to use, using guide cards, finding the title on a subject card, and so on. Yet, new barriers exist with electronic catalogs and databases. Effective library media specialists have always gone beyond lessons in just location and access, and today's electronic resources help students do that very effectively. But, some of those forty-eight steps Mrs. M. and I identified in that past assignment involved interpreting the information on the card [now screen] to judge whether that source would be relevant, appropriate in reading level, about the right amount of information, recent enough, and focused. Those needed skills have not changed and students still have difficulty making those kinds of preliminary judgments.

When we complain that students choose the first article on the periodical list, the first eight books in a keyword search hit list, or the first two articles in a Google list, we are really responsible for not having taught them to do otherwise. Effective library media specialists know it is essential to teach critical analysis and decision making in choosing resources. The proliferation of digital information tools means we are forced to find ways to teach students how to choose among available databases and then among a list of many results so their assignments can be done in a coherent and effective manner. Designing activities to ensure effective intellectual access to information is our biggest challenge today. It is not enough to choose good reference tools such as Junior Reference Collection, nor to merely teach students how to manipulate search devices. We must then teach students how to choose the best information from all that is available to them.