Information Literacy – Ashford University Library Experience

Information Literacy – Ashford University Library Experience

Ashford University

General Education Capstone

GEN 499

Information Literacy – Ashford University Library Experience

When I began my journey here at Ashford University, I found the Ashford Library to be a scary experience for me and dreaded going into it; because I was unfamiliar with it. However, the more time that I went into the Ashford Library to do research, the easier it became. Furthermore, I have found Ashford’s library to be the best place for me to find peer-reviewed scholarly resources for my written assignments.

Ashford University has made many changes to their library in the past three years that I have been a student here. Not only have they extended their hours of availability of their librarians, included more webinars on research tips, they have made it more user friendly when searching topics in general. For instance, if you need to research the topic on capital punishment, all you need to do is put the topic in quotation marks and click on the search button. You will be provided with everything on this topic; nothing more, or no less. This allows for me, the student, to be able to find exactly what I am researching for; and in less time than it would take than having to “Google” it on the web. In addition, the results that I get from the Ashford Library are peer-reviewed and scholarly resources, hence, using information that is not factual or more one sided. For example, when I want to search outside of our University’s library I have to be aware of where that source has come from. I have to look to see if it is a .com or .net, which is not as reliable of sources as those from .gov, .org, or .edu.

The Ashford University Library has improved my experience in conducting research because it is a “one stop shop”. In addition to cutting down the time that it takes me to research my chosen topic and finding scholarly sources for my topic, I can go there any day of the week, day or night, since it never closes. This allows for me to stay home and not have to drive to my nearest library and have to look up exactly what I need in a card catalog and have to hunt for that particular book through all of the rows of books. And, because of having this convenience, it allows me to spend more time to put into a well-researched and well-written paper.