January 2021 - 15 credit winners
Winners of the Winter 2020-21 Library Research Award.
The Award is designed to recognize and reward exemplary library research skills. Students submit a research paper or presentation that they have completed for a PCC course together with reflections on their process. Librarians review the submissions, looking for evidence of excellent research skills and strong information literacy. Information literacy is one of PCC’s General Education Learning Outcomes and an information literate student possesses crucial skills to succeed both in and out of the classroom.
Winners, listed alphabetically below, were each awarded up to 15 credits of tuition to be used before June 30, 2021.
Samantha Barrera: Samantha submitted her paper on the death penalty for her Writing 102 class, taught by Simone Gers. She cited a broad array of relevant sources in her research, ranging from scholarly journal articles and law reviews, to informative newspaper stories and data from reputable websites. She demonstrated the ability to synthesize and integrate her sources in support of her thesis.
Eva Kamenetskaya: Eva’s paper from her Writing 101 class, taught by Carmen Beaudry, explored the costs 
and values of earning a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) for aspiring artists. In her reflections, she noted working with a librarian via LibChat to learn how to use tools like MegaSearch and Library databases to collect an impressive and varied list of sources to use in her project. She also described a process where she used criteria to select or reject sources for use based on the scope of her project and source relevance.
Clinton Mackillop: Clinton’s paper explored issues of technological unemployment in the context of current economic systems for an assignment in his Writing 101 course taught by Sarah O’Hara. His reflections note his savvy use of Library resources despite not having interacted with them previously. He quickly learned the power of limiters to focus his search on scholarly sources and demonstrated an understanding of how the authors of scholarly articles refer to each others’ works in a kind of conversation that the student researcher can follow and learn from.
Lauren Redman: Lauren submitted a digital artifact, developed for her History 101 course, taught by Sara 
Davis. She wrote, produced, narrated and performed in a well researched video on the role of bread in societies throughout history. Her works cited included images, books, and articles from the disciplines of archeology, history, art and biology. In her reflections, she noted a sophisticated use of subject terms in her search results to narrow and refine her search as well as her use of several Library tools and services, including online order and curbside pickup of appropriate print materials.
Andrea Salazar Calderon: Andrea submitted her contributions on adolescent pregnancy that were part of an extensive Honors 101 group presentation on the broader topic of women’s health for Kyley Segers’ class. She developed appropriate keywords, searched for, selected, evaluated, and annotated a varied and relevant group of sources, selecting both scholarly articles and case studies in support of the project. She took advantage of a wide range of Library services and resources including databases, tutorials, FAQs, and help from both her class’ embedded librarian and the Ask a Librarian service.