ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


492 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2002

THE W A Y  I SEE IT

Looking for a few good questions

It really is process, not product

by Celia Rabinowitz

Y ou k n o w  h o w  cartoons sh o w  that a 
character has an idea by having a light 

b u lb  su d d e n ly  appear in a bubble over the 
character’s head? That’s w hat learning is— an 
unpredictable m oment w hen a connection is 
made. And w hat makes learning so exciting is 
that it is so unmanageable. We can tiy to en­
courage it and create structures in which it can 
take place, but I am not sure we can (or would 
want to) manage it. It is really a kind of miracle.

W hen w e talk about managing information, 
w e usually focus on finding ways to help stu­
dents learn to use information retrieval tools 
of all sorts, create good search queries, evalu­
ate results, cite properly, and avoid plagiarism. 
We decide w hether to make handouts avail­
able to students in print or on the Web. We 
plan w orkshops on First Search databases and 
com paring Internet search engines. We p on­
der how  hands-on instruction spaces should 
be configured.

Many of the students I see at the reference 
desk have requests that begin, “I need infor­
mation on . . .” and I usually respond by ask­
ing, “What do you want to know  about this 
subject?” or “What are you going to do with 
the information that you find?”

In class I often ask students how  psycholo­
gists, or philosophers, or political scientists 
might ask questions about certain ideas or top­
ics. More than a manager, I want to be a learn­
ing partner. I want students to learn that there 
will always be questions: Why didn’t I retrieve 
the results I wanted from that search? Which

databases will w ork best? Are there other re­
sources (human, print, etc.) that will help me? 
Am I still asking the same questions that I was 
w hen I started?

W h a t stu d e n ts  n e ed  t o  ask
I recognize that our current preoccupation with 
trying to manage the process of learning and 
the infonnation that accompanies it has, in some 
ways, been driven by necessity. Vendors modify 
(they w ould probably say enhance) search in­
terfaces eveiy few months, and content is con­
tinually added or deleted. We find ourselves 
in a seemingly never-ending expansion of elec­
tronic resources and are responsible for mak­
ing sure students and faculty know  how  to 
use these expensive (albeit extremely useful) 
resources. But they also need to know  the 
w hen, why, and why not.

Some of the really fundamental questions 
are ones w e should be encouraging students 
to ask (and that w e can model for them  in all 
kinds of settings). Those questions include: 
What do I think I w ant to know? What do I 
already know  about this? Why do I need/w ant 
to know  this? Why is this question interesting 
to me (and w orth the next eight-to-ten weeks 
of my time)? What kind of information is out 
there? These are the questions that can lead to 
the light bulb of revelation w hen real learning 
is taking place.

Easy o n  t h e  " h o w "
Can w e really afford to p lace less e m p h a -

About the author

Celia R abinow itz is director o f  th e  library a n d  media services a t St. Mary's College o f  M aryland, e-mail: cerabinowitz@smcm.edu

mailto:cerabinowitz@smcm.edu


C&RL News ■ July/August 2002 / 493

sis o n  the “h o w ” o f searching? D espite (or 
because of) how  fast the “h o w ” is changing, I 
think w e should. I am always reminding fac­
ulty that if they w ant to try new  approaches to 
learning, or focus on incorporating informa- 
tion/technology fluencies into their courses, 
they must also be willing to sacrifice content.

If w e really w ant to provide students with 
transferable know ledge to help them  becom e 
successful lifelong learners, w e n e e d  to help 
them  kn o w  ho w  to ask the right questions. 
And this probably m eans w e w o n ’t be able 
to cover h o w  to use every possible source. 
But w e will b e  able to help  students recog­
nize w h e n  they have a question that infor­
m ation sources are likely to help answer, and 
how  to identify the places they are m ost likely 
to find inform ation they can use.

And if they learn that m ost databases sup­
port truncation, B oolean operators, limiters 
o f various sorts, a n d  printing or d o w n lo a d ­
ing, th en  w e will have achieved o u r goal of 
helping students becom e adaptable and able 
to use new  tools.

I f  w e  re a lly  w a n t  t o  p ro v id e  

s tu d e n ts  w i t h  tr a n s fe r a b le  

k n o w le d g e  t o  h e lp  th e m  b e c o m e  

successful life lo n g  le a rn e rs , w e  

n e e d  t o  h e lp  th e m  k n o w  h o w  t o  

ask th e  r ig h t q u e s tio n s .

Som etimes the screen of hits in Psyclnfo 
provides the very spark that results in the 
light bulb o f revelation. But the spark has to 
have som ething w ith w hich to interact, and 
th at’s w h ere the unpredictability of our, and 
our stu d e n ts’, intellectual curiosity com es in. 
T hat’s the u n m anageable part of this p ro ­
cess that w e often overlook in o u r desire to 
feel as if w e have control over the inform a­
tion a n d  inform ation tools w ith w hich w e 
w ork. I, for one, am glad that the am azing 
hum an-driven part of this enterprise remains 
a constant. ■