Libraries and Graduate Students: Building Connections

Citation

MacDonald, R. (2010), "Libraries and Graduate Students: Building Connections", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 728-729. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378831011096411

In today's academic library world, postgraduate (or “graduate” in North America) students are like the teenagers of the 1950s: they have somehow gone unrecognised as a group. Most research into teaching information literacy skills in an academic setting has focused on undergraduates or staff, and the particular demands of connecting with postgraduates for instructional purposes have been largely unexamined. The compilation of case studies in Libraries and Graduate Students attempts to rectify this by illustrating the many different ways librarians have tried to tailor their efforts at teaching postgraduates in a variety of academic settings.

Although the settings may vary, various themes repeat throughout the case studies. Not surprisingly, postgraduates are shown to be more sophisticated users of libraries and databases than undergraduates, but the “tool focus” (i.e. “how do I use this database?”) inherited from undergraduate days means that, unlike experienced researchers, many postgraduates do not see the bigger picture of available information resources. Hence, there is a need to adopt a longer, less tool‐oriented focus for postgraduate instruction. Relevance and atypical lifestyle are issues with postgraduates, as noted by Oliver Kohl‐Frey while he describes efforts to incorporate postgraduate information literacy instruction into the standardisation of Europe's higher education systems. Badke also notes just how much postgraduates prefer programmes highly relevant to their studies, making integration with academic programmes more of a necessity than for undergraduates. Frand et al. describe their programme for making life‐long learning a part of transforming students into future business leaders through personal relevance. Other reports of integrated programmes in wildly differing academic situations confirm that “one‐shot bibliographic instruction” just is not appropriate for postgraduates. In contrast to these studies, Garritano describes a non‐integrated but tightly focussed series of offline library seminars for chemistry graduates, noting the importance of practical issues such as marketing, documenting and evaluating library courses – not to mention providing free ice cream.

Distance learning is identified as more of an issue for postgraduates than other academic groups. The resulting proliferation of online instructional programmes focuses attention on the greater importance of effectively using online tools when dealing with postgraduates. Harrington describes the information needs and behaviours of humanities graduates, noting it is vital to establish a connection with them before they go offsite. However, Badke cautions that online courses do not suit all learning styles, while Pival et al. wonder whether students might actually be learning effective information literacy skills from their own online activities, despite the “good enough” attitude that internet searching promotes. Issues of academic integrity are alarmingly prominent: discussing the role of librarians in teaching about plagiarism, Caravello describes how business and engineering students can be plain dishonest, while (distressingly) law students are simply confused. More positively, Xiao and Traboulay note that feedback from draft submissions to Turnitin.com can be an effective tool for teaching about plagiarism. Finally, the last chapter by James looks at what graduates gain from working with rare book/manuscript repositories, and, just as importantly, what the repositories get from the graduates – a timely reminder that postgraduates are a valuable part of the academic world, and deserving of librarians' attention.