What did you hope to achieve by enrolling in LIB100? It’s OK if your response is “to fill a program requirement” or “because I needed 1 credit,” but you might have been prompted because you’ve been frustrated with research before, or because LIB100 sounded like a good way to become a more efficient searcher. You might have enrolled after an experience being overwhelmed with too much information during a research assignment, or you might even have recognized the increasingly complex nature of online research that presents new ethical dilemmas with every tool and platform you encounter.

Regardless of what brought you to class, you can expect to feel more comfortable with the following learning outcomes by the end of our five weeks together.

Those outcomes are great for LIB100, but sometimes it can be difficult to translate outcomes to our real lives. Luckily, my job as your instructor is to translate course material to make it relevant to your real life! So what do these learning outcomes mean to you? Well, by the end of LIB100, you will become more familiar with the tools, resources, and services available to you as COCC students through the Barber Library. But you will also become more efficient and strategic as researchers using all types of sources from all types of tools. You’ll do this by better recognizing your own information needs, understanding how certain sources align to those needs better than others, and uncovering the context behind information creation. This should help you find better sources more quickly when you need information for your other classes, your job, and just generally in your life. Sound good? Then let’s get started!