Online Browsing for Inspiration:

A Workshop for Visual Arts Students at Capilano University

Erin Ziegenfuss

User Group: " Visual Arts Students

O CapUs Visual Arts

degrees are 2-year programs; also PostGraduate Certicates O The work produced by Visual Arts students involves a wide array of media and processes in creating art (Frank, 1999) O Identity as artist rst and foremost
Frank, Polly P. 1999. "Student Artists in the Library: An Investigation of how they use General Academic Libraries for their Creative Needs." The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 25:6, November, 445-455.

Information Needs and Information Seeking Behavior

O Necessitate creative

stimulus to produce their work O Tend to limit themselves narrowly to their art O Browsing & directed search O Sources outside of library
Use interpersonal resources and the Internet Reluctant turn to library resources and librarians Often unable to differentiate between valid and invalid information

Outcome & Skills

O

To support the browsing and targeted search efforts of student artists in a variety of online resources through developing effective search and evaluation techniques.

SKILLS: O Ability to use search strategies to nd information in online library databases. O Ability to use advanced search techniques in webbased browsers. O Ability to use visual and clustering search engines for browsing. O Ability to evaluate sources, websites in particular.

Relevance to" Visual Arts Students

O Addresses browsing O Focus on use of clustering and visual search

engines O Increases effectiveness in directed searching O Empower them to turn to the library through increased familiarity of library resources

Targeting Visual Arts Student Learning Styles

Activities with:
O Hands-on practice

of skills O Individual exploration of resources

Further Training

Database article selection and retrieval; Focus on evaluation for authoritativeness and credibility; Citation of sources.