Research can be a daunting task, but thanks to a new initiative by Parks Library, there is another avenue of help available for ISU students and faculty.

Undergrad Commons is a three-year information literacy project designed to integrate electronic resources into undergraduate courses. The program is funded by Parks Library and the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust.

Library faculty, along with ISU professors, are providing a new approach to teaching effective use of networked electronic information, as well as traditional print resources.

“It is a difficult process to find relevant sites on the Web,” said Kathleen Kern, project leader of Undergrad Commons.

She said the library Web page is a good place for students to start online research.

“The reason we encourage students to start with the library is that we have a number of resources that we’ve purchased that they’ll only have access to through the library,” she said.

Those sources include online journals, article-indexing databases and the subscription version of Encyclopedia Brittanica.

“We get a better range of resources,” Kern said.

She also said search engines are not conducive to research because most of the information they find is not valuable.

“There’s no consistency in content value of what’s available online, and search engines don’t have the ability to retrieve just what is valuable,” she said.

For students who do online research, Kern said there are several things to look at to determine if a Web site is credible.

“One [thing to look at] is who has authored the Web site, what their purpose in putting the Web site together would be, how accurate is the site and how recent, if recency is an issue,” she said.

Diana Shonrock, science and technology librarian, said she thinks the program is a good resource for students and faculty.

“I think the Undergrad Commons is a positive thing that will link course instructors to librarians that understand the materials in their field and can help students access those materials,” she said. “It links the subjects to the subject research.”

For students who don’t want to use Parks Library as a source, Kern said there are some other sites that provide credible Web sites.

“There are sites that are somewhat similar to the library, like the Internet Public Library,” she said.

The Undergrad Commons includes a variety of courses ranging from journalism and mass communication to women’s studies. Courses for the spring semester include Journalism 201 and Speech 212.

During the fall semester, the Commons had courses in history, journalism, philosophy, speech communication, women’s studies and zoology.

More information on the Undergrad Commons is available on the library home page at www.lib.iastate.edu/commons.