Speed databasing makes connections in Marvin Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Emily Lougee

Staff Writer

Speed dating has a four percent success rate, according to psychologytoday.com.

Speed Databasing at Hudson Valley Community College’s Marvin Library hoped to increase the matchmaking process between students and library databases.

In speed dating, you have three or four minutes to get to know someone. Students had the opportunity to get to know the college’s databases using a similar concept.

Students gathered in the Marvin Library Learning Commons on Valentine’s Day, for an opportunity to match with the database that best fits their research style.

Students rotated in three to four-minute sessions with librarians and library staff. Each meeting represented a different database found on the Dwight Marvin Library website. The end goal of the event was for students to choose the database that best fit them.

“The whole point of it is designed for students to be able to learn more about and familiarize themselves with the databases that the library subscribes to, because there’s a lot of really awesome databases on there that people don’t really know exist,” Anne Rappaport, Library Outreach Specialist and organizer of the event, said.

Students had a few minutes to talk with a librarian about each database and ask questions. They learned about each database and how it helped for different types of papers and projects. Six databases and the interlibrary loan system were talked about at the event.

One of the databases featured was Westlaw. “Westlaw allows for easy and one-stop access to federal, state, regulatory and news sources, as well as hefty academic law reviews that deal with cutting edge legal issues,” Valerie Waldin, Associate Professor who represented the resource, said. “Students get up to speed on the law in a topic with relative ease.”
According to Waldin, not a lot of databases do what Westlaw does.

Another database represented was CQ Researcher. “I chose CQ Researcher because it has easy-to-read, balanced overviews of controversial and emerging topics that are frequently researched by students,” Brenda Hazard, Library Director, said. “Examples include video gaming, solar energy, immigration, obesity crisis, organic farming and poverty.”

With a total of 129 databases offered to students through the library, Hazard believes that a lot can go wrong while trying to find the right one. “Students are often overwhelmed when presented with the entire list of library databases and I think they resort to Google because it’s easy to search and provides results,” Hazard said.

Waldin agreed that students are generally uncertain about which database is best for each specific research task. “Once a student chooses a database, the student needs to get a handle on effective search strategies to find relevant materials within Marvin Library databases,” she said.

Rappaport got the idea for Speed Databasing from a library Facebook group she’s a part of. “I was looking at the conversations and I saw that someone had something similar, but instead of having an actual event, it was databases that had dating profiles,” she said. “They would give these handouts to students in classes so they could go through them and pick the one that was best for them based on the dating profile.”

Rappaport hopes to continue holding fun and engaging events in the future. “Speed Databasing is something I’d love to do every Valentine’s Day, but the library, even though it does have an academic environment, is a place where a lot more things can get done… definitely going to do more of these,” she said.