campus picture

SCCC 280A, 281A, 285A and University 201
Fundamentals of Inquiry
Library Instruction Week #1


Library Research:
Overview and Tour

To Syllabus

To Next Class

Spring 2004 Library Tours
January 13th - January 22th, 2004
Mondays at 11 a.m.
Tuesdays at 3 p.m.
Thursdays at 4 p.m.
All tours include a tour of the building and an introduction
to the sources available on the electronic network.

No sign-up is necessary. Tours begin in the Thomas Cooper Library Lobby.


Welcome to the Fundamentals of Inquiry-Library Instruction Series

Objective:

You are now beginning your first course in Inquiry. On these pages you will find an online tutorial designed to provide you with the necessary tools to navigate the library and the information resources within it. These segments are also being written with the intention of insuring that, so far as library instruction is concerned, you will meet all of the Association of College and Research Libraries' requirements for the Information Literate Student.

Think of this as an owners manual to the University Libraries.

Discussion:

Among other activities,such as critical thinking and writing papers, education is concerned with information; finding, acquiring and using it. Inquiry is one of the ways that we acquire information. Your professors are going to introduce you to examples, methods and patterns of inquiry. Depending on your chosen field, inquiry can take place in the laboratory, in the field or in a museum. The library will be another important resource for you. Here you can discover what has been done already, who the experts are and how they did their research. The library holds a central place on every campus. We hope that this online class will help to make our libraries a central place in your life.

The first few modules will discuss the Thomas Cooper and other academic libraries. Two facts need to be emphasized early.

  • Academic libraries and academic research are complicated undertakings. Do yourself a favor and ask a librarian for help whenever you have a question.
  • Another important fact that you need to retain is that once in the door or connected online to the U.S.C. Libraries, you are, in effect, within reach of almost any legitimate research material in the world. This is made possible through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) which we'll talk about a little later.

    • As the semester progresses we will look at the various types of information resources found in a library and how they will be useful in your college work. To use these effectively we will look at how USCAN, the USC Library catalog is used as well as several representative bibliographic databases. These databases are how we access the millions of journal articles that have been written on scholarly topics. They are extremely useful but not always completely intuitive.

    THIS PAGE and all of the others in this series will have the same header and footer as the other pages associated with the Thomas Cooper Library. In the header you will find links to all of the important online tools discussed in this series. Below you will find a link to Bob Skinder, the librarian-instructor who is responsible for this series.

    Action Items Throughout the semester, you will be expected to complete one of these modules each week. In most cases there will be a short discussion of an important concept. Often the discussion will be followed by "action items," places to go and steps to perform to give you experience in the areas discussed.

    Questions for understanding:
    Here you will normally find a few questions refering to the particular module that you are working on. Hopefully they will be useful to you.

    Terms used


    Information Literacy Issues
    Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."
    - ACRL, the Association of College & Research Libraries has made a study of how people acquire and use information as well as missuse it. Out of that work has emerged a set of guidelines establishing what one can expect from a person who is considered to be Informationally Literate. A secondary mission of this series will be to identify how each of these modules address various issues within the guidelines and what steps you might need to take to insure that you have met all requirements. A complete list of the Information Literacy (I.L.) objectives for the academic community can be found at the ACRL site.

    Additional material


    This Week's Assignment
    Action Item:
    Finding your way around the physical and virtual Thomas Cooper Library is essential to doing library research. Here are two ways to meet this objective.
  • Take a tour around the library with me. There is a schedule at the top of this page. Meet me near the front door at any one of the posted times. This is the preferred method.
  • You can take a virtual tour at http://www.sc.edu/library/pubserv/selftour.html The best way to do that is to print out the text and then walk through the library checking off each important location or service as you encounter them.


    • Questions, comments or make an appointment with the Inquiry Librarian.


    To Syllabus

    To Next Class

    To the Top


    University LibrariesUSC home pagesearch library sitehoursuscanelectronic indexeselectronic journalsUniversity Libraries



    USC logo


    This page is maintained by staff of the Science Library.
    Find out more about the Science Library
    Send comments to the Librarian,
    and copyright © 2002, the University of South Carolina.
    URL http://www.sc.edu/library/science/201/inquiry.html

    Science Library
    Level 4, Thomas Cooper Library The University of South Carolina
    Columbia, South Carolina 29208
    Phone: 803-777-3151
    Fax: 803-777-4661