Capstone Project Introduction

ILS 616 - Social Sciences - Literature and Sources is an important course for a reference librarian in order to learn about the literature available in the various fields in the discipline. For the course project, students were to pick a topic within the scope of the social sciences and write a paper that discusses the information flow within a selected field. Additionally, an interview was to be conducted with a reference librarian that handles the one or more of the social science fields. Furthermore, a pathfinder needed to be created for a topic of the student's choice.

Education is an important field in the social sciences. It was also reasonable to choose this field with the availablility of a librarian that would be available for an interview. After some searching on the Internet, it was concluded that librarians have created numerous pathfinders for various academic subjects including education.

When one looks at the reference collection of a library in the education section, many of the materials are concerned with financial aid. It seemed plausible to create a pathfinder for financial aid because this is an important category of education.

The web site is organized as follows:

Study Paper

• Introduction: Study Paper - A brief introduction to the study paper required for the project.


• Interview Summary - A summary of the interview conducted with one of the reference librarians at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.


• Sub-Disciplines of Education - An annotated list of sub-disciplines in the field of education.


• Types of Materials - An annotated list of the types of materials used in the field of education, e.g. handbooks, bibliographies, etc.


• A List of Education Journals - A categorized list of journals that are important in the field of education.


• References - The list of references used for this project.

Pathfinder

• Introduction: Pathfinder - A brief introduction for the pathfinder including why financial aid was chosen, a mission statement, scope of the pathfinder, the organization of the pathfinder, how it was done, and a list of the information provided in the pathfinder.


• General Sources of Financial Aid - A list of general sources for financial aid including books and web sites.


• Financial Aid Sources for Undergraduate Students - A list of financial aid sources specifically for undergraduate students.


• Financial Aid Sources for Graduate Students - A list of financial aid sources specifically for graduate students.


• Financial Aid Sources for Special Groups - A list of financial aid sources for students in special groups, such as international students, Hispanics, military, women, disabled, and no-need funding.

This project was chosen because it demonstrated the the concepts presented in Librarianship as a CAREER. The six concepts are presented here.

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Prepared as part of the requirements for the Master of Library Science Degree
Department of Information and Library Science
School of Communication Information and Library Science
Southern Connecticut State University