Editors’ Choice: Search Magic: Discovering How Undergraduates Find Information
Searching for information might seem like one of the most routine and commonplace activities of university life. However, as students work within an information environment that is increasingly open and dynamically changing, research assignments also represent a complex and potentially daunting task, and one that is fraught with embedded social and cultural processes and relationships.
The Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project was a two-year study of student research practices involving a collaborative effort of five Illinois universities…. Using a mixed-methods approach that integrated nine qualitative research techniques and included over 600 participants, the ERIAL project sought to gain a better understanding of undergraduates’ research processes based on first-hand accounts of how they obtained, evaluated, and managed information for their assignments.