March comes in like...

The old saying about the month of March often relates to the weather. But here in the climate controlled library, it's always a sunny day~

March is the time when projects often shift from the big papers to many smaller assignments. Often teachers will have a series of smaller assignments for students that require them to find articles, explore subjects in related arts classes such as cooking and art, or to do quick writing assignments that illustrate their mastery of a topic in a current class.

One of the ways that the library is helpful here are the numerous databases that we have. Many are subject specific, such as Popular Culture or the Health Reference Center. Others have a more broad sweep of articles on many topics.

I encourage students to use the databases for serious research. While the Internet is a great place for quick information, databases offer edited perspective on many topics. Never underestimate the value of edited material! Fact checking and updating of information is crucial for many topics, such as legal issues, health issues, world events in context and many more. As I often tell my students, there is no one with a broom sweeping out the outdated information from the Internet.

Our society has made much of "fake news". Informed students and adults need access to quality sources of information. Our library is happy to provide those sources to our patrons. If you have not yet taken a look at the databases, the I urge you to do so. Any feedback you can offer us is also helpful and can be emailed to us here at hslibrary@clearfield.org. I look forward to hearing from you.