IRLS 524/424
Spring 2005
William Welburn
wwelburn@u.arizona.edu
520-299-1417 

INFORMATION RESOURCES EVALUATION

 Course Description

This course is designed to familiarize students with the theory, practice, and issues of reference services in libraries and information centers. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to describe the principal features of reference services in a variety of environments. Specific topics covered include information seeking and retrieval; types of reference services; reference service in different library environments; the reference interview; the fundamentals of bibliographic control; database and Web searching; the evaluation of reference sources and services; specific types of reference sources. Learning will be through lectures, readings, exercises, and a term project.  

Course Procedures

As a virtual course, our anchor will be time. Each Monday a new topic will be introduced as a short lecture, sometimes with various learning objects to augment key points. Over the course of the week you will be asked to: 

  • Post 1-page response papers written in reaction to questions posed at the end of each lecture. Response papers should incorporate your understanding of the topic based on other class work, including exercises and readings as assigned. 
  • Complete and submit exercises and evaluation summaries designed to give you experience in evaluating services, collections, and individual tools.

 Textbooks:

Required: William Katz, Introduction to Reference Work, Volume 1 8th Edition (McGraw-Hill, 2002)

Suggested: Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, Better Together:
Restoring the American Community (Simon & Schuster, 2003)

Textbooks are available at the UA Bookstores and can be ordered online from Amazon and other bookstores or directly from the publishers.

 Additional readings will be assigned 

What is Reference? 

Week 1, Wednesday January 12: Course Introduction

Katz, Introduction to Reference Work, Vol. I, Chapter 1

(Note: I will be at ALA Midwinter January 13 - 16.)

Week 2, Tuesday January 18: Reference Services, Information, and the Community

Suggested Reading: Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, Better Together: Restoring the American Community (Simon & Schuster, 2003)

Exercise 1: A Visit to a Reference Collection, due January 21.  

Week 3, Monday January 24: Reference Interview, Reference and the Electronic Library

Katz, Chapter 2

Exercise 2: Searching the Web, due January 28. 

Finding Tools 

Week 4, Monday January 31: Bibliographies

Katz, Chapters 3 & 4

Evaluation Summary #1: WorldCat and four subject bibliographies, due February 4 

Week 5, Monday February 7: Indexing and Abstracting Services

Katz, Chapter 5 & 6

Evaluation Summary #2: Web of Science and four selected indexing and abstracting services, due February 11

(Note: I will be away February 9-11 and again February 14.? Assignments will be checked February 12)

Fact Tools 

Week 6, February 14 : Please Note that we will not have a session this week 

Week 7, February 21: Encyclopedias

Katz, Chapter 7

Evaluation Summary #3: Five Encyclopedias, due February 25

(Note: I will not be available February 14-15)

 

Week 8, Monday February 28: Ready Reference Sources

Katz, Chapter 8

Evaluation Summary #4: Fact Books, Almanacs and Yearbooks, Handbooks and Manuals, Directories, Statistical Sources, due March 4.

 

Week 9, March 7: Biographical Sources and Dictionaries

Katz, Chapters 9 & 10

Evaluation Summary #5: Five Biographical Tools and General, Foreign Language, and Subject Dictionaries, due March 11. 

Spring Break 

Week 10, March 21: Geographical Sources, Government Documents, and other Specialized Sources

Katz, Chapter 11 & 12

Evaluation Summary #6: Atlases, Maps, Gazetteers, Geographical Encyclopedias and Dictionaries; Street Maps and Travel Guides; Government Information, due March 25. 

Week 11, March 28: Using Web Resources

Evaluation Summary #7: International Organizations and Web resources (think tanks, organizations, etc.), due April 1. 

Managerial Issues in Reference and Information Services 

Week 12, April 4: Planning, Managing, and Staffing Reference 

Week 14, April 11: Interlibrary Services 

Week 15, April 18: Reference Policy and the Ethics of Reference Service

Exercise 3: Locate a policy for Reference or Interlibrary Loan and evaluate against the Standards adopted by the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association 

Week 16, April 25: Instruction and Information Literacy 

Week 17, May 2: Wrap up: Term Projects are due May 2. 

Grading:

  • Response Papers constitute a major part of your class participation grade. Each response paper (there are 15) is worth 2 points = 30 points (or 30% of your grade)
  • Exercises and Evaluations. Each exercise and evaluation summary is worth 4 points for a total of 40 points (or 40% of your grade)
  • Term Project. You will be asked to create a Webliography of resources on a particular topic. Created for SIRLS by the late Edmund Santa Vicca, a Webliography is an annotated bibliography of reference tools ?that are have been created uniquely on the World Wide Web, or that are web-accessible?:  

Do not include any electronic resources that are not web-accessible. If the web resource you use is also available in other formats, that should be indicated in your annotation. 

Please include, and arrange in logical user-friendly order, a variety of resources that include encyclopedias, directories, biographies, bibliographies, other webliographies, dictionaries, etc., as well as any other resources that might be unique to that discipline. (Santa Vicca, 1999) 

You can prepare your term project on the Web, providing me with a working URL, or as a Word document. Make sure that all links are working and indicate the date that they were last checked. The Term Project is worth 30 points (or 30% of your grade).

All assignments are due on dates given above. Grades will be reduced 10% for Term Projects received after the close of class. No credit will be given for late Response Papers, Exercises and Evaluations. 

More Policy Notes: It is expected that we will all abide by the University of Arizona?s Code of Academic Integrity, which begins with the following statement: 

Integrity is expected of every student in all academic work.

The guiding principle of academic integrity is that a student's submitted work must be the student's own.  

The Code also details procedures for handling academic misconduct as agreed upon by the University.