[LM_NET] A student question that gave me "pause"

[Jacqueline Henry <JHenry@GANANDA.ORG>]

A 9th grade student came up to me today, looking very confused.  The
class was required to use a book to locate information about a
Renaissance person.   She confessed to me sheepishly that she had no
idea how to find a book.   Wow....  That's something to think about!  I
wonder how many students are too embarrassed to ask for help?
 
Here is another thought about the situation.  This young lady was
searching for information about Albrecht Durer.  We have a lot of
excellent information in various books - but not an entire book about
Albrecht Durer.  Wouldn't it be great if our MARC records came with the
full text of the books as a matter of course?  She could have then typed
in Albrecht Durer and located all the wonderful books in the history and
art sections that have very useful chapters about Albrecht Durer.   Alas
- had she gone directly to  the catalog, it would have told her that we
had nothing at all about Albrecht Durer.  What a pity.  In this case, I
am glad she did not know about library catalogs and came to me directly
instead.  Many students just give up if the catalog comes up with a big
fat zero.  When will our catalogs  catch up with Google?   Yes - I know
about Google Book Search - but it is just too overwhelming for school
students in its current form.  We need a Google book search just for our
own individual libraries.  Think Google could do that for us?  Ahhh!! 
Copyright...  But we OWN the books.  Shouldn't we be able to search them
more effectively?  There must be an answer out there.
 
Jacquie
 
"The Librarian, whose job is to heal ignorance, to keep life safe for
poetry and to put knowledge smack dab in the middle of the American
way."
 
From The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9-20-03
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jacquie Henry, MLS
Ruben A. Cirillo High School (GHS)
Gananda Central School District
3195 Wiedrick Road
P.O. Box 609
Macedon, NY  14502
315-986-3521 x 3144
jhenry@gananda.org
Library Page: http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/indexgcl.htm
Blog: http://nlcommunities.com/communities/wanderings/default.aspx

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