Our research examined the use of supplementary materials in six environmental science disciplines: atmospheric sciences, biology, fisheries, forestry, geology, and plant sciences. Ten key journals were selected from each of these disciplines and the number of supplementary materials, such as data files or videos, in each issue was noted over a…

The train-the-trainer model has great potential for expanding information literacy programs without placing undue burden on already overextended librarians; it is surprisingly underused in academic libraries. At the University of Kentucky, we employed this model to create a new information literacy program in an introductory biology lab. We…

Active learning is a hallmark of the traditional science laboratory class, making it a natural place for librarians to integrate active information literacy instruction. The course structure of science lab classes, particularly large entry-level undergraduate classes, can make the logistics of such integration a challenge. This paper presents two…

Primary literature is our main mode of communication in the sciences. As such, it is important for our undergraduates in the discipline to learn how to read primary literature. Incorporating primary literature into undergraduate science courses is often difficult because students are unprepared to comprehend primary articles. Learning to read and…

An e-book usage survey was sent through departmental mailing lists to the graduate students, scientists and faculty members of the Chemistry Department and Biology Department of Indiana University, Bloomington (IUB). Several faculty members, scientists and graduates students from the Chemistry Department and Biology Department were also contacted…

This paper will focus on the citation analysis of graduate masters theses from Carleton University's Biology Department with implications for library collection management decisions. Twenty-five masters theses were studied to determine citation types and percentages, ranking of journals by frequency of citation and by number of authors citing, and…

In order to integrate library instruction seamlessly into an introductory biology course, two librarians collaborated with a biology faculty member to create a three-part series of instruction sessions known as the Science Seeker. The Science Seeker taught students about the structure of scientific information by tracing the path that discoveries…

This case study describes an information literacy lab for an undergraduate biology course that leads students through a range of resources to discover aspects of genetic information. The lab provides over 560 students per semester with the opportunity for hands-on exploration of resources in steps that simulate the pathways of higher-level…

This article describes an analysis of course syllabi from selected courses in the biology curriculum at Iowa State University. The purpose of this research was to learn about the numbers and types of information literacy assignments given to students majoring in biology. Overall, the most common assignment type for biology majors was a lab report…

Biology undergraduates at Indiana University have often been expected to find information for course exercises or written reports, but the skills necessary to do so are not taught consistently in the curriculum. Other efforts described in the literature have been successful in teaching information literacy skills, but not always in a way that is…

The purpose of this study was to reveal influential journals used by life scientists; journals not currently included in "BIOSIS Previews," but included in either "PubMed" or "Science Citation Index Expanded". These 252 journals were revealed by the Eigenfactor, an iterative ranking scheme which quantitatively measures the scientific influence of…

We report on a citation analysis of Ph.D. dissertations in plant biology and zoology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, undertaken to test the common assumption that scientists favor current research to such an extent that journal backfiles can be de-emphasized in academic library collections. Results demonstrate otherwise. The study is…