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SLO 3, ARTIFACT 4:
LibGuide on Atheism in the United States I created this LibGuide as a resource for students interested in the history of atheism in the United States. Because it encourages students to explore an array of sources, it supports the “Searching as Strategic Exploration” principle articulated in the ACRL Framework. As someone who has spent much time learning independently, I appreciate the LibGuide’s value as a self-instruction tool. Just one resource in a LibGuide can start a student down a path of inquiry that can lead to months, if not years, of intellectual engagement. Creating this resource was a challenge because it required me to curate resources within a very broad subject area. There were times when I felt as if I were leading the potential researcher too much one way or the other by including certain resources and not others, or by including too many resources. One way I tried to compensate for that was by pulling resources from a wide range of cultural perspectives and in a variety of media formats. The Research Tips page at the end of the guide encourages the students to explore even more widely by using the library catalog and moving beyond print resources. In future LibGuides, I would likely list fewer resources and focus more on broad reference works, so as to encourage more independent exploration. Three sections of the LibGuide contain polls in which I ask the students about their views on religion. This turns the LibGuide into a collaborative learning tool where students obtain assistance with their chosen topic while teaching the librarian something about themselves. In 2012, Kimbel May and Anna Leyba Delgado wrote about how valuable LibGuides were to the students at St. Philip’s College: “LibGuides, which can incorporate information sources found as text, graphics, and video, connected well with our students and their wide variety of learning styles. This is very important with our student body, which includes a large number of non-traditional students…the structure of LibGuides lent themselves well to instruction and students were returning to them as research tools after attending instruction sessions which utilized a LibGuide. Both faculty and students found the tool’s format uncomplicated and readily accessible” (p.44). I plan to use this atheism LibGuide and other LibGuides as models when preparing future resource guides for learners. Reference May, K., & Delgado, A. (2012). Linking through LibGuides: Collaborating with faculty through an adaptable teaching and marketing tool. Library Orientation Series, 43(43), 43-46. |