The library will be offering a set of two workshops meant to teach students how to research and use the internet efficiently May 1 and 2.
The May 1 workshop, called Google the Right Way, will teach students how to look at Google as more than a simple search engine, said Lauren Valdes, the librarian who will lead the workshop.
“There’s millions, billions of pages on Google and most people just look at the first page of results,” Valdes said.
She stressed the need to input precise and key terms into Google to receive better results.
“Most people think it’s just a query box, how difficult can it be? But there’s a lot of tricks behind that query box,” she said.
The May 2 workshop, called Work Smart Now Hard, will offer students tips and secrets on how to approach research, Paula Paggi, the department chair for library science who will lead this workshop, said.
Paggi said that one aspect of research that the workshop will be focusing on is overcoming the overwhelming feeling many students feel before starting a research project.
“Sometimes [students] put it off because they don’t know where to begin,” she said.
The library has already offered these workshops April 16 and April 17. Usually around 35 students show up, and many teachers offer extra credit for attending the workshops, Paggi said.
Anyone is welcome to attend the workshops, and in the past she has had instructors attend the workshops as well, she said.
“I get English students, I get psychology students, I get ESL students,” she said. “Anybody that wants to improve their papers and make their research more effective and productive.”
In the past, the library has done similar workshops on subjects such as Wikipedia and paper deadlines. Paggi said she hopes that the new library being built, which is expected to include a new computer lab with 40 computers, will be able to better accommodate the workshops that have been done in the past.
Most of all, she hopes that after this semester’s workshops, students “feel a lot more comfortable and know they can come see us.”
Both workshops will be located in the computer lab area of the library, and a sign-up sheet will be available so students can receive extra credit.