I often use shopping/cooking metaphors:
Explaining to students that searching for information can be a bit like planning an important dinner party. They shouldn't go shopping without first writing a list of ingredients (search strategy) as they might waste time and get the wrong items once in the shop. Also, the quality of the ingredients and organisation of items can differ depending on which shop they use.
Also, the idea of where to find things once in the shop - I think supermarkets are quite good for explaining how information is categorised and how articles are indexed. For example, where would you find raisins? Could be several places: snack aisle, health food aisle, fruit and veg or the baking aisle. So an article can be indexed with several different tags.
Nancy
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________________________________
From: Information literacy and information skills teaching discussion list on behalf of Robert Polson
Sent: Tue 09/06/2009 10:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TV times metaphor
Using the metaphor of different kinds of shops is also a good method -
even comparison between supermarkets helps also.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: Information literacy and information skills teaching discussion
list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
[log in to unmask]
Sent: 09 June 2009 10:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TV times metaphor
Another contribution
The metaphor is that of TV listings magazines. I originally developed
this as a way of explaining the difference between A&I databases and
full text databases. A TV listings magazine gives information about
shows on all channels (i.e. articles in all journals), but you can only
watch the shows that are free or on channels you subscribe to (i.e.
journals that are free or your library subscribes to).
This can be broadened to the wider area of finding information on a
topic by drawing distinctions between general resources like the Time
Out film guide (Google - doesn't care what types of films/academic
information you need) and the guide to greatest horror films
(subject-specific, will give far more in-depth knowledge). Essentially,
it's part of showing that depending on your particular need there are
some resources that are better-suited than others.
Still worried about not crediting these to the creators but they have
been sent to me rather than the list so I think I need to respect their
confidentiality. Perhaps I'll list all the contributors once the ideas
start to dry up?
Mark
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