Greetings!

If that truly is an assignment to get a student familiar with the library it is truly a stupid assignment, or a lesson in frustration.  I would find out who the professor is and bring them in for a sit-down on how to work with librarians to craft useful library assignments.

We started holding annual spring faculty information literacy workshops at the library a few years ago and found one positive result was better library-focused assignments and more faculty-librarian collaboration.

Thats my humble, and somewhat cranky, opinion.

Ron

Ronald Kane Hardy
Collection Development Librarian
Assistant Professor of Library Science
Central College - Geisler Library
812 University - Pella, IA 50219
641.628.5221 - hardyr@central.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Urbanik, Elizabeth [mailto:EUrbanik@LIBRARY.MSSTATE.EDU]
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 2:57 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Odd question

I just had our current journals librarian ask me a question on behalf of a
student. She said his assignment was to find a serial or journal that had
had a numbering change. Obviously this is one of those things the profs do
to get their students acquainted with the library (I hope). I'm stumped. Can
anyone out there give me any hints? What I want to do is be able to give the
student a clue or a couple of steps that would set him on the right path --
I don't like handing out answers to assignments if it's the student's job to
find those answers.

Thanks for any help you can give,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth Urbanik, Assistant Professor
Serials Cataloger
Mississippi State University
662-325-7665
eurbanik@library.msstate.edu

"Frugality for the Public is a rare virtue, but when the public Service must
suffer by it, it degenerates into a Vice" -- William Byrd II