And of course, Mark, I know you’re not questioning my teaching. I’m just thinking through two issues you’ve brought up that I’d never thought about before: whether or not I think kids should get this education primarily in K-12 (I, myself, didn’t learn the broader meaning of “index” until well into college), and whether or not I should re-think my current reluctance to make this a teaching point in my classes.

Currently, I do not usually explain that many of our databases are indexes. This may be a failure on my part. I’ll have to think about it. It’s complicated by things like Google and JSTOR, which index terms but are not indexes, and which students have often used much more extensively than they’ve used indexes such as the MLA International Bibliography. It gets so tangled, this web of familiar back-of-the-book indexes, familiar search tools that index terms in full text, and unfamiliar Indexes (with a capital I) where keywords in title and author and publisher/source are indexed like Google indexes things but which also include special terms which we think of as Indexing but which are labeled “subjects” or “descriptors.” I talk about these terms as “consistent vocabulary” within a given search tool, and once they’ve seen the power of “consistent vocabulary” students really love indexing. …

But now I’m just rambling. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that many interconnected decisions about how to teach individual tools from among all the various tools (which look the same to students but function differently) have all ganged up on students to make this a much less simple lesson than I had originally thought it to be.

And you are probably right about discussions of whose responsibility it is to teach these things–all of us, esp. as the situation is –not ending well. But as you know me, that “truth” is irrelevant in the larger picture. It is certainly relevant to how the discussion is approached and handled. But, nonetheless, the provision of the education of our young is all of our responsibility, whether or not we are directly involved in that education, parents or not, etc.

As you might guess, for me these are ethical issues. In fact, critical ones. And whether or not the word “index” is used on or in the Reader’s Guide seems quite irrelevant to me, as does paper vs. online use. How (or even why) are people teaching its use (if they are) without pointing out that it is an index?

I do trust that you know far more about the educational and reference needs of current undergraduate students than do I. But I will not cede my right to my views on what I believe to be (some of the) proper education of the young in our society. But it is the failures of much earlier in the system that leads you to the situation in which you find yourself and your students. As it stands, I am overjoyed that they have you and others like you to do whatever triage and remedial education as you can as you attempt to influence the larger goal(s).

Be well, my friend. :)

And I should say that I believe part of my job is to help students learn these terms. I don’t want to shield them from jargon entirely. I just want a way of explaining myself in those situations when I don’t have the time to teach vocabulary. Every class I prioritize out 99% of the content that could be useful to my students. Sometimes, depending on the students’ level and their assignment, vocabulary makes the cut. Much of the time, though, it’s left standing in the rain along with a whole host of other important research concepts ranging from Attribution to Catalog Searching. My best hope is that, as I work more and more closely with professors departments, I can vary the critical competencies from assignment to assignment or class to class in the hopes that, over the course of a program or major, my students arrive at their senior thesis with at least some familiarity with the full complement of critical research practices.

I guess what I’m saying is that regardless of who “should” be teaching these things (never a discussion that ends well, in my experience), I find myself perfectly positioned to do it now. I therefore want to do a good job of it, and part of doing a good job is knowing when and how to present students with unfamiliar terms or unfamiliar uses of familiar terms. I don’t claim to have figured that process out. Not by a long stretch. But the last thing I want is to derail an already overwhelming session by using terms that will cause more confusion (and complacency, stemming from a false sense of understanding) than clarity.

My point–perhaps where I begin to get elitist [I don't think so though]–is that not a single student should be in college/university, esp. one like Carelton, without knowing the difference and being able to code switch, if you will, in context, or ask.

The other half of the point is that it is our educational system which has failed them and not that they are stupid/failures/etc.

I realize that it makes your job harder but someone has to educate them as to what these terms mean. And I do not think that it is only academia that uses these two in this way. Are we saying students in K-12 never ever use Readers Guide to Periodical Literature anymore? [Adds another jargon word to the mix.]

IMNSHO, there is NO excuse for this state of affairs. But I am sorry that the difficulty falls to you. :(

Thanks, bibliotecaria and Esha!

And yes, Steve. I squirm a little bit inside every time I use “database.” I don’t use it with my students when I can help it, but I’ve given myself free license to use it here, just cuz. But man… talk about a term that has somewhat competing jargon definitions AND no connection to students’ understanding of research.

Here’s more food for thought: http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2008/05/thoughtmesh-innovative-scholarly.html

From their website: “ThoughtMesh is an unusual model for publishing and discovering scholarly papers online. It gives readers a tag-based navigation system that uses keywords to connect excerpts of essays published on different Web sites.”

Not spamming…as you know…I have no affiliation with them. We’re looking into it as potential for some of our own projects here.

To trot out the old 2.0 idea…indexing 2.0??

Esha

I think I agree with Mark when I say that “index” and “literature” aren’t so much jargon–i.e., overly technical or obscure language that is used as a sign of belonging to a group–as they are useful and precise words that should be understood by any educated people. The fact that they are not so shouldn’t stop us from using them, and I think that a pithy and useful statement like “scholars index their own literature” might be just the way to get students to understand and own those words.

You wanna talk jargon? How about “database,” a word that only librarians use with quite that meaning and those associations. I’d like to give a big raspberry to the generation of librarians who threw away the perfectly good word “index” and replaced it with “database.”