Presentation to the Anthropology Discussion group at #alamw15 in Chicago. Ethnographic research at "Atameken University" in Kazakhstan is used to demonstrate opportunities to advance information literacy and information access for international students at a top university in Central Asia.

2. IL and Student Research
Habits in the Social
Sciences: a view from
Kazakhstan
Celia Emmelhainz
Social Sciences Data Librarian
Colby College
ANSS Discussion
ALA Midwinter
30 January 2015

3. Location: Inner Asia

4. Astana, Kazakhstan’s Capital

5. “Atameken” University

6. The University Library

7. Research questions
How do post-Soviet students in the
social sciences conduct research?
What factors impact their research habits?
What tools do Kazakhstani students need
to effectively access the academic
literature, and how can librarians help?

8. Social Science
Students…
• Orient themselves with Wikipedia and Google
(Colon-Aguirre & Fleming-May 2012)
• Spend 1-5 hours getting materials and 1-4 hours
writing any short paper (Head 2008)
• Students use some resources well and miss others
entirely (Cheney 1971)
• Seek friends before consulting librarians (Fleming-
May & Yuro 2009)
• Main challenge is figuring out what the professors
want (Leibiger 2011)

9. “I go to the databases and click on the
collection of JSTOR… and there I enter
the keywords for my assignment… I
mean, that are relevant for my thesis”
- Quralai, third-year in literature

10. “First, a plain Google search helps me to
define foreign aid… and this helps me to
understand the topic to a broader extent…
and then when I have some ideas in my
mind… [I have] the narrower research topic I
would like to focus on.”
- Zhanar, second-year in economics

11. “I just google the topic first, and for example I
read Wikipedia just to have some background
information. Then I start looking for sources
again using the library databases. Sometimes I
use Google Scholar, but it’s not really helpful, you
know?” - Nursultan, third-year in politics

12. “First of all, I discuss it with my friends, like
maybe ask them, what is the relationship
between these two? …and when I just come to
the internet, there is more ideas coming
because some people [are] sharing what they
think about it”
- Anel, first-year in economics
“Sometimes I may write
something but at the end I may
write contradicting things… ”

13. “You may ask some people… and then you
just start searching for opinions of reliable
people… and [then] you can start writing your
research.
“And only after I did my research did I try to
find an opposing view.”
- Anel, first-year in economics

14. Research questions
How do post-Soviet students in the social
sciences conduct research?
What factors impact their research
habits?
What tools do Kazakhstani students need
to effectively access the academic
literature, and how can librarians help?

15. “If I want to find information on western
problems it is easy, but to find
information in this society is hard.”
- Aigerim, in international relations
Central Asia
as a library research location

16. “It’s really cool that we have access to
these documents, because in high school
when we studied history of Kazakhstan,
I mean… the textbooks didn’t have all
these primary sources in them.”
- Quralai, third-year in literature

17. Summary: Strengths of a Eurasian Location
Access to research archives
Access to primary sources
Good coverage of Post-Soviet topics

18. “I went to ask my relative where I can
find information relevant to Kazakh banks
and statistics” rather than to the library.
- Assel, second-year in economics

19. “Usually when there’s no statistics… I just
[give] this survey to Atameken University
students… just to get some data usually, to
have one example to the whole society.”
- Aigerim, third-year in politics/IR

20. “It’s really necessary for literature majors
to have books… and we don’t have them.
I had to buy books myself. I mean… I
had to go to the book store in Dubai and
buy these books that we have to read.
The job of the library is to provide us
with books. It’s sad.”
- Quralai, third-year in literature
Central Asia
as a library research location

21. “I go to Google
Scholar and entered
some keywords and I
stumbled upon a
really good article
but they’re closed. I
mean, the access is
limited and one would
have to pay for them
and be a professor…
through the institution
they were in.”
- Quralai, in literature

22. Summary: Challenges of location
o Limited access to books
o Paywalls on journal articles
o Lack of reliable local sources
o Lack of published information
o Systemic issues; not the fault of
Atameken U. or Kazakhstan

23. A way around?
• Downloading PDFs from public sources
• Torrents, download sites, buying books abroad
• Google Scholar, Google Books, Amazon previews
• Old university logins and US/UK connections

24. “My friends…are also sources of information,
because they look for other sources… They
also help me to understand how to construct
my argument. Because when I have a lot of
ideas in my head, and I don’t know how to
construct them in clear places, I have friends
to talk to.”
- Quralai, third-year in literature

25. Librarian as a key information source

26. Research questions
How do post-Soviet students in the social
sciences conduct research?
What factors impact their research habits?
What tools do Kazakhstani students
need to effectively access the academic
literature, and how can librarians help?

27. Students and their faculty want help
with:
1. Searching for information
2. Evaluating information
3. Understanding information
4. Citing academic resources

28. “The librarian teaches this system of boollett
[Boolean] or something, where for example in
JSTOR you write something –and – or –
something, you use brackets – and – or –
symbols.”
- Nursultan, third-year in politics
1. Searching for information

29. “[I teach] what a database is, that there’s a
separate codec that was developed by a
commercial company, and that we actually
pay money for this. And that’s why there
is a different of quality… I start with, what
is a database: it’s a collection of scientific
papers that are peer-reviewed.”
- Ameli, Kazakh instructional librarian
2. Evaluating information

30. “Sometimes we find a bunch of
information but we don’t know how to
absorb it, we don’t get the idea of how to
analyze it. For example, we get a lot of
tables, numbers, numbers, numbers…
what is the right one to choose?’ So this
kind of stuff is difficult to analyze.”
- Assel, second-year in economics
3. Understanding information

31. 4. Citing information
“The worst kind of junk I ever
encountered [was a student who cited
Yahoo! Blog posts in her paper]… I was
very upset about that, in part because
the rest of the paper actually was quite
good.”
- Alex, Atameken faculty member

32. What help can colleagues give?
* Professors rely on colleagues for research
* Students also… but peers not as informed
What should you cite?
* Students told to cite everything
* But like professors, they use Google and
Wikipedia to orient their research
Emerging Tensions for Students

33. Addison and Meyers 2013
Three frameworks for information literacy:
1) acquire information-age skills
2) cultivate scholarly habits of mind
3) engage in information-rich social practices

34. Information-Seeking Skills
1. starting with good orientation
sources
2. networking with librarians for ideas
3. accessing sources in multiple ways
4. extracting resources strategically
5. differentiating quality of resources
6. understanding and citing resources

35. “You would need to rebrand the
librarians as experts in particular areas…
Thinking coaches, research coaches... It’s
really about the thinking that goes along with
the searching.
“That’s what [students] need, and I think
they can really benefit from a librarian
who can help them think.”
- Nathan, Atameken faculty member
The Kazakhstani Faculty-Librarian

36. Thank you.
назарларыңызға
рахмет!