Week 4 Day Two: Doing Library Research at FGCU

We had a special visitor today from our Florida Gulf Coast University library, Kimberly Reycraft. Kimberly has a background in environmental science and policy and earned her Masters in Library and Information Science in 2008. She has been working at the FGCU Library since 2007.

 The session covered the following topics:

• how to find books
• how to find articles
• how to get help (including help with MLA citation style)

She brought the Palmetto Writers through a series of exercises to help them find books and articles related to the topic of 20th century learning vs. 21st century learning. 

Paper 2 will focus on  a comparison and contrast of a person, a place, or a thing. The students will be required to use a minimum of three sources following the CARS checklist (credibility, accuracy, reliability, and support). 

Kimberly explained the following terms: peer-reviewed journal, abstract, microfilm, RefWorks, and more. It was an informative session. I realized that when doing comparison/contrast papers, it will be difficult to do one-stop shopping by typing in x vs. y key words.

Choosing those keywords to put in your search is vital to locating what you want quickly. There is so much out there, you have to hone in on those key words and narrow your search.


For our papers in Composition 1101, we won't be using peer-reviewed articles because our target audience will not be subject matter experts in the area of study. However, with that being said, when they enter their core major coursework, they may be asked to find peer-reviewed articles, so the exercise was great.


I think the students were surprised to learn that they can add articles of interest to folders, email or text the article link to themselves, and get an automatically formatted citation. Where were those tools in my day.

Libraries in my day looked like the photo below. We had to do our research in a library using a card catalog. Yes, cards were in those drawers according to subjects and you had to flip through the cards to locate what you needed to research.

                            from dfulmer's Photostream


A modern library looks something like this. This is our FGCU library. It's a cool and bright place to hang out. If you want to do your research from your dorm room or house, you can access it electronically.

                              From Florida Library Snapshot Day

The times have changed, no?