I agree with your thoughts, Bill. I have not moved a lot of items from the
reference section, yet, but am looking at what I have left and may be doing
that soon. My other thought is to leave them on those shelves but with a
limited checkout - two or three days. There are some things I won't move or
allow to be checked out - all my literary criticism books, as they would
just disappear plus the English dept. has whole classes come in and each
teacher uses a different three/four day period for intensive instruction on
different genres all year long so I need to have them on the shelves.
Toni Koontz
Librarian
St. Charles Preparatory School
Columbus, Ohio
akoontz@cdeducation.org
Carpe Diem
----- Original Message -----
From: "B. Waters" <billlibrary@yahoo.com>
To: <LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:34 AM
Subject: TAR: Elem: Reference items for K - 2 - PONDERING WHY..Encyclopedias
> Everyone is different, but I wish the respondents would think again about
> their encyclopedias. I moved all my "reference" collection onto the
> circulating shelves 5 years ago. The only REF call number is on a set of
> encyclopedias and a set of dictionaries....and those have gone into a
> classrooms for a week or so.
>
> I personally use the encyclopedia weekly...there are post-its poking out
> from several volumes. So many of our students are told to write a report
> on subject "xyz"...and they jump on the internet without even knowing how
> to spell it, let alone have any chonological/geographical reference. I do
> elementary storytime...needed a FAST picture of Einstein...walked over to
> shelf and had one to pass around in about 40 seconds. My Jr. High students
> had "titanic" and "?Iraq?" or "?bombing?" as topics...the encyclopedia
> told them WHEN the titanic sank and What war they wanted to research so
> they could make an informed decision on whether to change topics or not.
> My senior doing "abuse" as a topic was able to narrow that wide topic down
> by looking in an encyclopedia for about a minute.
>
> I know that the English department has nixed using an encyclopedia as a
> REFERENCE source, but why does that prohibit using it as a learning
> source? I can grab a volume of an encyclopedia (up to date set, of course)
> and have a CLEAR outline of almost any research topic in 2 minutes max. Is
> that the end of the research...of course not. But it is about the best
> start, for ANY age...including the graduate classes I have taught. If you
> find nothing new, no new term or bit of information, (that you were
> unaware of), then you are quite the expert in that topic.
>
> I ran across a thought on internet research that set me back...perhaps all
> of you already realize this. The thought was on evaluating web sites..if
> the reader cannot show proof of reliable source responsibility...DON'T USE
> THAT SITE as a source. I have struggled with various sites...looking for
> statements of responsibility, dates, etc. Often we end with, "well, you
> made a good effort, just go ahead and cite the site and you'll get
> credit". That's like finding report laying on the street, searching a bit
> for ownership, then using it as a reliable source because "you made an
> effort". If students only used sites they could PROVE to be from reliable
> sources, I think more sites would have a consistent statement of
> authorship and reports would improve in quality.
>
> Again, we are all different. I don't think we need to "get rid" of
> encyclopedias/reference any more than we need to toss out all magazines.
> We just need to adjust to the changing needs of our students.
>
> Bill F. Waters
> Western CUSD#12 Schools, Illinois
> billlibraryATyahoo.com
>
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