DEVELOPING INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS OF UNDERGRADUATE GEOLOGY MAJORS THROUGHOUT THE CURRICULUM

Geology majors need to learn how to search the geologic literature, evaluate the relevance, quality, and availability of resources, and analyze and synthesize material from various sources. Students are quick to declare a lack of references, are not creative in using search terms, are easily frustrated with databases such as GeoRef, do not distinguish between detailed peer-reviewed sources and minimally reviewed sources, and do not carefully evaluate the relevance of the source to the subject they are investigating. Assignments in courses throughout the geology curriculum and resources prepared by science librarians provide multiple opportunities for students to develop information literacy skills in a geoscience context. In our curriculum, courses such as freshman seminars, Mineralogy, and Earth History offer opportunities for students to develop information literacy skills early in their undergraduate career. Each course requires students to search the geologic literature using GeoRef or other electronic databases, our library's on-line catalog, and web resources for one or more poster or paper assignments. In one freshman seminar, students write several response papers as well as a research proposal on a significant question regarding extinctions. In Mineralogy, each student prepares a poster describing various aspects of a relatively obscure mineral. In Earth History, each student presents a poster and writes a short paper on a place, process, or event related to historical geology that interests him or her, and also writes a short reflective paper describing the search process. In these courses, librarians give formal presentations on the search process, design on-line course resource pages, and assist individual students. Students continue to develop their information literacy skills through various assignments in other courses in the geology curriculum, including senior research. Our experiences suggest that individual assistance by both instructors and librarians is critical in developing students' search strategies and skills, reflective papers provide insight into students' search strategies, geoscientist-library collaborations are valuable, and repeated opportunities for searching should be built systematically into the geology curriculum to develop proficiency.