Pegasus Librarian

Danielle Theiss and Kiane Kovacs have edited and published a book inspired by the work and writings of Barbara Fister, one of the librarians I most respect in the profession for her complex thinking, clear writing, and general all around amazingness as a person.

The book itself has chapters of all kinds, each of which is inspired by the three main areas of Barbara’s public voice: Change and Academic Librarians, Student Learning and Research, and Publishing and the Academic Library. And one of those chapters is a dialogue that Steve and I had about working effectively with undergraduates. It’s decidedly not your average library science essay, and it was awfully fun to do. We hope you’ll enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed writing it!

Jastram, Iris, and Steve Lawson. 2013. “Swimming in the Matrix: A Dialogue on Teaching Undergraduate Research.” In Finding a Public Voice: Barbara Fister as a Case Study, edited by Danielle Theiss and Diane Kovacs, 69–84. Chicago: ACRL.

p.s. Kudos to ACRL for their fabulous author agreements.

Sometimes when I teach first year students how to use a book (the table of contents and index are the “google of the book” telling you what’s inside and where to find what you want) I get shocked looks from profs. In fact, last week one prof argued gently with me that I was surely mistaken that this kind of thing was news to our first year students. Surely they know how books work, how periodicals work, or that encyclopedias are often ordered alphabetically.

Well, thank goodness for Barbara Fister who just started compiling a list of just these kinds of things, where we have a tacit understanding of how information works but our students do not. Everything on her list resonates strongly with me and my experience of first and second year students.

Go read it! Tacit Knowledge and the Student Researcher