Wayne Bivens-Tatum at Princeton, on teaching modern undergraduate humanities search techniques…

“…humanities reference has changed from being question-driven to being project-driven […] From students at all levels, I’m asked not for answers to questions, but for strategies of research. It seems crucial for my work not just to know that X database or Y book might cover a field or have an answer, but to be able to map a research strategy for a specific research question or project. […] might involve searching databases in various fields, thinking about various ways to approach the topic, different avenues of exploration, different ways of conceiving the question depending on what resources we find, etc. This is especially true as the students engage in interdisciplinary work.”

All of which rings true. He offers a list of skills a modern humanities librarian might need at the undergraduate level. I might add to the list…

* the need to fully understand how learning about a new topic and searching for it are now intertwined as part of the same dynamic process.

* the ability to teach re-findability, which partly relates to teaching how to set up a workflow to accurately move references from initial discovery to final paper.

* the ability to help a student evaluate and then buy a paper copy of a book, outside of the usual library channels.