Planning Women Studies Library Instruction

Undergraduate Women’s Studies Course: Planning and delivering a library instruction session Elisheba Muturi April 15 2008

Planning the instruction session

Communicate with the course instructor

Analyze assignment

Determine students’ information literacy level

Set session learning objectives based on course and assignment objectives as well as ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards

Identify appropriate resources

Create a lesson plan outline

Planning the instruction session

Provide handouts listing search strategy examples and summarizing resources

Ensure follow-up eg. Close to the assignment deadline, set up a clinic in the lab on a few sessions where students who need help with searching and locating resources can come for assistance on a drop-in basis

Learning objectives

Use the UBC subject guides as a starting point 2.3.b

For historical information, recognize the information gaps and limitations of using Google as a starting point 2.3.b

Distinguish primary from secondary resources1.2.e

Understand the use of the catalogue to locate a variety of resources and formats 2.2.e

Understand the role of indexes in finding information – identify appropriate ones 2.3.b

Formulate a search strategy using relevant search terms – controlled vocabulary and key words, using boolean logic and basic truncation 2.2.b, 2.2.c, 2.2.d

Effectively search appropriate internet sources for experiences 2.3.b

Sources

Subject page

Background and overview

Primary sources

Databases:

Sociological perspective: sociological abstracts

Gender: contemporary women’s issues

Psychology: Psychological abstracts

Websites: Intute

Search engines: Google, Technorati

Search terms: key words and controlled vocabulary

Subject headings

Key words

immigrant women and (experience* or represent* or construct* or identit*)

women immigrant* and canad*

immigr* and women and employ* and canad*

chinese and immigr* and women and canad*

filipin* and immigr* and women and canad*

Women immigrants – geographical place – aspect – publication type (biography or bibliography)

Women immigrants--Canada--Social conditions,

Women immigrants--Asia--Economic conditions.

Women immigrants--British Columbia—Biography

Women immigrants--Bibliography.

Emigration and immigration

Chinese Canadian women

Filipino Canadian women

Background/Overview sources

Catalogue keyword search for: women AND (encyclopedia OR handbook? Dictionar? OR almanac?)

Subject heading: Women's studies-- Encyclopedias .

Examples:

Encyclopedia of Women’s Studies HQ 115 E52 2001

Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (Online) – search for immigrant – overview article on immigrant labour

Primary Sources

Catalogue: (diar? letter? autobio? correspondence? oral? Interview? experience? personal narrative?) AND (immigr? migr?) AND (wom?n)

Database:

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories: Organized by

Nationality

Subjects eg. Women in workforce

Database search strategy #The concept of women is redundant in women’s studies databases Some databases allow automatic stemming in the place of truncation Social emmigrat* Identit* Country or province Geographical Political Cultural Economical (labour or work*) Aspect Refugee or asylum seeker Migrant* Immigra* immigrant Construct* Perspective Represent* Experience* Synonyms Concept#

Studies on Women and Gender abstracts ( immigrant+ OR refugee+ ) AND ( experience+ OR perspective+ OR representation+ OR construction+ OR identity+ ) – retrieves 42 Automatically searches for variants (hence no need to truncate) when “stemming” is selected

Women’s studies international ( immigrant OR refugee ) AND ( experience OR perspective OR representation OR construction OR identity) - 2899 (key words - too many hits) TX ( Immigrant experience OR Immigrant women's attitudes ) and TX ( Migrant women OR refugee women ) - 29 (descriptors – manageable recall)

Contemporary Women’s Issues 1) Immigrant* AND experience (keywords alone with no limits) - 1346 2) experience* OR perspective OR represent* OR construct* OR identit* (keywords) immigrants and refugees AND images of women (subject areas) – 19 Additional limits - country

Sociological abstracts DE=(wom*n or females ) and DE=( immigr * or refugee or migrant *) and AB=( experience * or perspective * or ( identit * or represent * or construct *)) and DE=( work * or lab*r or employ *) and ( filipina or philipines ) – 62 For sociological perspective, it’s useful to add a topic (eg. Work) and geographical perspective

Psychinfo SU ( experiences OR events ) and SU females and SU ( immigration OR refugees OR migrants ) subject headings only to manage recall - 46

Internet Sources: Intute

Google Basic search – immigrant women experiences – 525 000 Smarter search ~women ~immigr ~experience OR ~represent OR ~identity OR ~construction, limit to .edu domain: 59 600 Google Scholar search – 1740 To search for primary documents - "primary documents" women immigrants

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