"Ranked only above 'blogs'"

The Free Range Librarian blog has a really interesting post about a University of Washington report on students' info-seeking behaviours. There are some provisos of course: the research was sponsored by ProQuest, the study only looked at 2318 students on 6 US campuses, and the report was prepared by an info lit advocacy group (Project Information Literacy). In my opinion, there is a prejudice against reference service per se that I've observed in other info lit material.

All that said, it's still worth reading the blog post, let alone the report itself. Schneider writes that "when they need help, they don’t turn to the library; often, they turn to faculty. Librarians ranked only above “blogs” among a list of 15 possible information sources used for coursework." She then asks asks some potent questions like "why don’t we adapt our practices so that we are working with the “proxies” for library services — the faculty themselves, who create the assignments, interact first and most with students, and are the referrals for the tools we offer?"

The report findings "suggest that students conceptualize research, especially tasks associated with seeking information, as a competency learned by rote, rather than as an opportunity to learn, develop, or expand upon an information-gathering strategy." If that's true, how and when should we be taking part in the process?

http://freerangelibrarian.com/2009/12/01/must-read-project-information-literacy-report/