Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award

Undergrads: Did you write a great research paper, present an excellent research poster, create a well-researched performance last semester? Did you use library resources and services, explore a variety of search systems, or engage with different kinds of information? If so, you can submit it for the chance to win a $500 award! 

Faculty: Know an undergrad who completed (or, nearly completed) a well-researched project? Let them know about the award!

Submissions are due Saturday, March 16th.

Find out more @ library.redlands.edu/alura

Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award

Undergrads: Did you write a great research paper, present an excellent research poster, create a well-research performance last semester? Did you use library resources? If so, you can submit it for the chance to win a $500 award! 

Faculty: Know an undergrad who completed (or, nearly completed) a well-researched project? Let them know about the award!

Submissions are due Friday, March 16th.

Find out more @ library.redlands.edu/alura

Welcome, back, to Armacost Library!

“Added ‘Back’ to ‘Welcome’" by Bob Duran under a CC BY 2.0 license

Welcome to the new year, and welcome back to the academic year!

The new year provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to have their scholarship recognized for its creativity and excellence. Consider submitting your researched projects for the Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award (ALURA): library.redlands.edu/alura. Submissions are due Friday, March 16, 2018. Review the guidelines, talk to a librarian, talk with your professor(s). 

As always, our hours are posted for the entire semester online: library.redlands.edu/hours. Notice that the hours in red are the hours in which the Library is open, and the hours in blue are when a librarian is around to help you.

Feel free to contact your subject librarian, via email, phone, or instant chat, for library or research-related questions. You can also make a research appointment with your librarian, or drop by during office hours just to say hello!

And here's my "welcome, back" ear worm from the 1970s, the television theme song for Welcome, Back Kotter.

Celebrate the 2016 ALURA Winners!

The 2016 Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award winners are ....

STEM category
Sarah Grimley whose research is titled The Need for a Neutral Speaking Period in the Trier Social Stress Test with faculty support from Dr. Lisa Olson, Biology.

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences category
Ellen Holt whose research is titled The American (Birth): A Valuable Pain with faculty support from Dr. Jennifer Nelson, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Ellen impressed the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Selection Committee with her reflection essay where she described the inspiration for her research, discussed her research methodology, and demonstrated an ability to adjust her search process when encountering challenges while gathering primary source data.

The STEM Selection Committee was struck by Sarah's tenacious search for information and use of multiple information tools. Her reflective essay and references demonstrated flexibility thinking in her searches, line of research, and integration of sources outside her discipline.

To view their research projects, check back shortly with the University's Institutional Scholarly Publication and Information Repository (InSPIRe). In the near future we'll upload their research projects to the ALURA series.

On behalf of both ALURA Selection Committees, we congratulate Sarah Grimley and Ellen Holt, two outstanding students at the University of Redlands! Please join us in the Library Conference Room (3rd floor) on Wednesday, April 6 from 4-5pm to celebrate their achievements.

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Selection Committee
Nathaniel Cline, Economics
Lua Gregory, Library (Chair)
Tim Seiber, Johnston Center
Gabriela Sonntag, Library

STEM Selection Committee

Ben Aronson, Biology

Les Canterbury, Library

Eric Hill, Physics

Hillary Jenkins, Environmental Studies

Paige Mann, Library (Chair)

Researchers Wanted: Apply to ALURA

Polish up your capstone project, research poster, documentary, seminar paper, or other work and submit it to the Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award (ALURA).

In 2016, for the first time, we'll have two categories: for the STEM disciplines and for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Science disciplines.

Undergraduate research is much more complex these days so the Armacost Library created this award to recognize scholars who demonstrate thoughtfulness, creativity, and critical thinking in their approach to research. We'll look for this in your Research Reflection Essay using our  evaluation rubric. Learn more about the submission process at http://library.redlands.edu/alura.

The award for each category is $500 and submissions are due Friday, March 11, 2016.

2014 Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award

Photo by Tommi Cahill

The Sixth Annual Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award Reception was held on Wednesday, April 16, 2014 in the Library.  This year's award was split between two recipients. We celebrated the student scholarship of Michelle Hahn, a History major completing her junior year and Mounika Parimi, a double major in Biology and Music, graduating this year. 

Michelle Hahn with faculty advisor Dr. John Glover (History)

Michelle Hahn received the award for her essay, "The Usage and Remembrance of History: Pseudohistory and its Damaging Effects in Apartheid South Africa."  Her essay demonstrated a clear convergence of evidence and argument, and addressed significant historical questions.  Michelle's research strategy essay traced a particular research interest by making connections between several courses, from multiple disciplines.  Additionally her research strategy essay indicated a strong understanding of historiography, and of mining the secondary literature for references to primary sources.  Well done!  

Mounika Parimi with faculty advisor Dr. Katherine Baber

Mounika Parimi received the award for her essay, "Musical Mixes of 'Classical India and the West: Exploring Novel Styles."  In her research strategy essay, Mounika describes research as an "opportunity to learn" and as an iterative process of developing a focus, finding and winnowing source material, managing disappointment, and seeking help.  Mounika collected and made use of a rich variety of primary and secondary sources in her wide-ranging project. Bravo!  

2014 ALURA selection committee and awardees. Bill Kennedy, Lua Gregory, Dr. Scott Randolph, Dr. Scott Stevens; Mounika Parimi, Shana Higgins, Tommi Cahill, Dr. Joanna Bieri, and Michelle Hahn

Many thanks are due to all the people that made this year's ALURA possible: the students who submitted their work; the selection committee; Director of Armacost Library, Gabriela Sonntag; amazing faculty across the curriculum encouraging their students to independent thought and exploration; and our talented Armacost Library faculty and staff.


Learn more about the Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award.  

Read This! Barbara Fister's "Decode Academy"

The text of Barbara Fister's talk presented at the annual LOEX conference, held in Nashville, TN, on May 3, 2013.  

Fister asks some big questions and makes some provocative claims in relation to student learning, libraries, and information literacy.  It's worth a read, and not just for librarians.

A teaser:

"Since I work at a small college with an undergraduate focus, my answer to “what are libraries for” tends to focus on student learning. In what ways does my library contribute to what our graduates learn? When we talk about information literacy, what we really mean by it is preparing students to keep learning, to participate in society, and to have the skills and habits that will help them make the most of their lives and contribute something valuable to society. This means helping them not only to decode how to find and use information – that’s the easy part – but helping them discover within themselves the ability to create new knowledge; to develop the skills that will not only help them recognize authority, but to become, themselves, authors of the world they’re stepping into when they graduate. We have a tendency to respond to the needs that present themselves, and those tend to focus on helping students be successful students. But we need to keep our eye on the ultimate purpose of

information literacy: to be able to use critical skills for inquiry wherever our students land, knowing that for most of them, it will be in a very different place."

Read the full text here: "Decode Academy."

5th Annual Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award Reception

5th Annual Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award Reception

Tuesday, April 2nd, 5-6pm

Library Conference Room

Armacost Library (3rd floor)

(refreshments served)

Alexandra Bollella with her advisor Dr. Pat Wasielewski (Sociology & Anthropology)

The 2013 recipient of the Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award (ALURA) is Alexandra Bollella for her paper titled "Bridging the Divide: A Comparative Analysis of Feminist Movements in Turkey and the United States.”

Alexandra Bollella and her faculty sponsor, Dr. Pat Wasielewski will join us to talk about their research processes. 

Please join us to celebrate undergraduate information literacy and library research skills!  We congratulate Alexandra and all of the students who submitted their work for consideration. The Selection Committee reviewed some impressive and varied research projects. 

The Selection Committee included:
Shana Higgins, Education, Interdisciplinary & Area Studes Librarian
Janelle Julagay, Business Librarian
Sanjeet Mann, Arts Librarian
Liesder Mayea, Assistant Professor, Spanish
Scott Stevens, Seiter Endowed Chair, Director of Writing
Vanessa Wilkie, Assistant Professor, History
Amy Wilms, Assistant Dean of Academics & Student Life

Information Literacy: Faculty Showcase 2013

This year's Information Literacy Showcase highlighted several diverse methods of integrating information and library research literacy into courses and programs:  a semester-long information literacy and research lab, a two-workshop introduction to research toward clinical practice, and a quick & adaptable literature review activity. 

Dr. Michael Groher (Communicative Disorders) and Melissa Cardenas-Dow (Behavioral Sciences Librarian) discussed the learning goals of CDIS 310: Junior Seminar, a course which orients students toward research practice that will support clinical practice through:

• learning to critically read research literature
• practicing research summaries 
•  and critical analysis of research

Two library workshops attached to this methodology course enable students to begin to acquire the language of their discipline and of the research databases in their field.

Dr. Scott Randolph (Business Administration) and Janelle Julagay (Business Librarian) described their development of and the outcomes of a semester-long research lab on which they have collaborated and co-taught for Randolph's BUS 226: The Rise of American Capitalism course.  Over the past two years their collaboration has grown from two library workshops during the BUS 226 lab to a weekly collaboration for the entire semester. Students are introduced to the practices of historical research, from deciphering and following footnotes to producing bibliographies to learning to ask questions of primary sources. In the process students also learn to recognize librarians as co-teachers in the shared education mission of the university. 

Finally, Gabriela Sonntag, Library Director, walked us through a literature review activity that provides an active learning opportunity for students to understand the purpose of literature reviews; how to read an abstract to quickly determine methodology, hypotheses, results, and gaps in the research; as well as learn to effectively read database records. 

Look for the products (sample assignments, activity prompts, worksheets) of this showcase in a soon to-be-announced Information Literacy Repository.  

We'll see you at next year's showcase!

Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award

The proliferation of data, information, knowledge, and representations of cultural artifacts in digital format has made research both a seemingly easier and a much more complex process than in the past.  In a Googlized information landscape so much is available at our fingertips. However, the sheer volume of information has made finding relevant sources of evidence and the evaluation of that evidentiary material more difficult.  Information literacy is a significant component of problem solving, decision-making, effective communication, research, and the production of new knowledge.

The Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award honors students who demonstrate sophistication, creativity, and unusual depth and/or breadth in the use of library collections and information available elsewhere in a variety of media and who show evidence of developing an understanding of the processes of research and inquiry. The award review committee considers the product of the research, but places particular emphasis on the research process: the demonstration of research skills, adept use of information resources, and reflection upon the strategies utilized to investigate a research problem. Winners receive a cash prize and public recognition of their excellent work.

This award isn’t the exclusive domain of the research paper.  Projects might include research involved in a musical or theater production, curating an exhibit, producing a film/video, developing a community service project, or tracing the historical research leading to current lab experiments or fieldwork.  Just to name a few of the possibilities.

More information about the award can be found at this web address: http://library.redlands.edu/alura.

Or, talk with your subject librarian: http://library.redlands.edu/mylibrarian.