2014 Charleston Library Conference

Upon entering a new research environment, graduate students and postdocs are faced with the quickly changing scientific topics of the graduate curriculum and research laboratory. These young scientists have to effectively identify, locate, evaluate and digest information, and do it quickly, yet the necessary library research skills are often missing. Young career scientists often learn these skills from their lab mates, mentors, and friends, in addition to trial and error. Library instruction, usually available through the graduate school orientation as well as via the institution’s library, is an important resource for a successful research career. The first half of this session will assess the learning experience of a typical graduate student/postdoc, and point out some of the strategies and resources that were found especially valuable (for example building searches in PubMed, PubMed search within the reference manager, and literature recommendation services, such as F1000Prime). The second half of the session will discuss strategies how a library instruction program can be designed to reach graduate students and postdocs. This session will provide attendees with ideas on how to better align the library program with what graduate students/postdocs want to learn and how best to teach it. Attendees will be encouraged to share their tips and experiences on instructing young life scientists about library skills during the session.