Transitions:
From High School to Academic
Libraries
Presented by:
Randy Williams, Bishop Strachan School
Mark Bryant, Humber College
Cecile Farnum, Ryerson University
Jeff Newman, University of Toronto
Deena Yanofsky, York University
Who Are We …
and What Do We Do?
Randy -
Teacher-Librarian, Bishop Strachan School
Mark -
Reference and Information Literacy
Librarian, Humber College Library
Cecile -
Communications and Liaison Librarian,
Ryerson University Library
Deena -
Reference and Instruction Librarian, Scott
Library, York University
Jeff -
Undergraduate Instruction Librarian,
Robarts Library, University of Toronto
Who Are You …
and What Do You Do?
Today's Agenda
This session will address the following questions:
• Who are we and why are we here?
• What are the major differences between the
academic library and the school library?
• What do your students already know?
• What do your students need to know?
• How can we work together to improve
the transition from High School to
University?
Why Are We Here?
The Obvious…
Students making the transition from secondary
school to college or university will encounter:
• More space
• More volumes
• More libraries
• More librarians
• More changes?
From High School …
• Single space/seminar rooms
• Smaller and varied staff composition
• Some computer workstations
• Collections geared to clientele
• Limited hours
• Dewey decimal system
• Citation styles?
… to the University Library
Robarts Library, the Humanities and Social Sciences library of the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
• Located in downtown Toronto.
• Over 30 libraries; approximately 10 million volumes
• 57,000 FTE Students
• Circulated 4,038,471 books in 2004/2005
• 938 online databases
York University
• Founded in 1959, York's Keele campus is now the
largest post-secondary campus in Canada.
• York's libraries are located in five buildings, and
contain over six-and-a-half million items - books, print
periodicals, theses, archival materials, micro-forms,
maps, films and music CDs.
• At the Scott Library, we
answer more than
100,000 in-person reference
questions every year.
• In 2006-07, over 23,000
students participated in IL
classes.
Ryerson @ a Glance
• Located in downtown Toronto
• 21,000 students; 700 masters and PhD students
• More than 80 undergraduate and graduate
programs
• Five Faculties: Arts; Business;
Communication & Design;
Community Services;
Engineering, Architecture
and Science
Humber College
• 2 campuses; 2 libraries
• 18,000 full-time students; 55,00 part-time students
• 350 programs
• 100,000 monographs,
• 40 databases
(north campus)
The "Google Generation"
The next generation of college students, more wired
than any other, might not be as good at Internet
research as you may think.
Some of the key problems include:
• Young people don't develop good search strategies to
find quality information.
• They might find information on the Internet quickly, but
they don't know how to evaluate the quality of what
they find.
• They don't understand what the Internet really is: a vast
network with many different content providers.
[http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_110120
08.pdf]
Since You Told Us …
Boolean Operations
Teachers
Librarians
Popular vs. Academic
Library of Congress
Classification
What do they need to know?
Jeff:
– Google vs. fee-based databases, e.g., Scholars Portal
– Academic or scholarly sources vs. popular publications
Cecile:
– Journal articles, books, and other information sources
– Dewey classification system to Library of Congress
Randy:
– Knowledge of Boolean logic
Deena:
– Getting help, including services like askON.ca
Mark:
– Knowledge of Information technology
– Time management skills
Collaboration
Collaboration is an effective strategy that can
help reduce student anxiety about the transition
to university.
So, where do we begin?
• Ryerson University
• York University Libraries
• U of T
• Humber College
… to the Future