Synopses & Reviews
Every day researchers face an onslaught of irrelevant, inaccurate, and sometimes insidious information. While new technologies provide powerful tools for accessing knowledge, not all information is created equal. Valuable information may be tucked away on a shelf, buried on the hundredth page of search results, or hidden behind digital barriers. With so many obstacles to effective research, it is vital that higher education students master the art of inquiry.
Information Now is an innovative approach to information literacy that will reinvent the way college students think about research. Instead of the typical textbook format, it uses illustrations, humor, and reflective exercises to teach students how to become savvy researchers. Students will learn how to evaluate information, to incorporate it into their existing knowledge base, to wield it effectively, and to understand the ethical issues surrounding its use. Written by two library professionals, it incorporates concepts and skills drawn from the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and their Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Thoroughly researched and highly engaging, Information Now offers the tools that students need to become powerful consumers and creators of information.
Whether used by a high school student tackling a big paper, an undergrad facing the newness of a university library, or a writer wanting to go beyond Google, Information Now is a powerful tool for any researcher’s arsenal.
Review
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Information Now is the research guide undergrads, faculty, and librarians did not know they were waiting for. Combining the fun of comics with wit and useful knowledge,
Information Now provides new researchers a visually engaging guide to succeed in the world of academic research. I highly recommend librarians and faculty use it to help undergraduates actively engage with the research process in a meaningful, yet super fun way. By using the comic format to ease undergrads into the challenging world of academic research, the authors have created one of the most relevant, accessible, and entertaining guides to research available.
Upson, Hall, and Cannon might not save the world with this book, but they are definitely saving the sanity of overwhelmed undergraduates facing their first college papers. Highly recommended for academic library collections and classroom instruction."
Review
"In today’s world of information overload, it is often difficult for students, the average citizen, and even faculty to wade through the mass of clutter out there in the world. So much of the information we encounter in our day-to-day lives is not only irrelevant, it’s often wrong. Increasingly, information literacy is a skill that everyone needs to function in our complex world and without it most of us are lost trying to navigate through the maze. Upson, Hall, and Cannon’s Information Now provides a practical guide for all of us to find our way around. They show us HOW and WHY it’s important to think about information literacy and the steps to take to make sure we do it correctly. It’s all here in this sequential art textbook: searching techniques, critical thinking, how information is organized, problems of plagiarism, copyright, and correct citation, databases, peer reviewed sources, metadata, Boolean operators, and much more. Information Now is a godsend and I can’t wait to use it in the classroom."
Review
“Upson and Hall’s experience as instruction librarians ensures that Information Now’s presentation of information literacy aligns with professional standards and practices, while cartoonist Cannon’s wry, animated style serves to reassure readers. Let their intrepid librarian help guide your students through morasses such as information overload, controlled vocabulary, scholarly publishing, the deep Web, and plagiarism. You won’t regret it.”
Synopsis
Want to learn about databases without the tedium? With its unique combination of Japanese-style comics and serious educational content, The Manga Guide to Databases is just the book for you.
Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod's humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It's all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems-with the practical magic of databases.
In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management. We follow along as they design a relational database, understand the entity-relationship model, perform basic database operations, and delve into more advanced topics. Once the Princess is familiar with transactions and basic SQL statements, she can keep her data timely and accurate for the entire kingdom. Finally, Tico explains ways to make the database more efficient and secure, and they discuss methods for concurrency and replication.
Examples and exercises (with answer keys) help you learn, and an appendix of frequently used SQL statements gives the tools you need to create and maintain full-featured databases.
(Of course, it wouldn't be a royal kingdom without some drama, so read on to find out who gets the girl-the arrogant prince or the humble servant.)
This EduManga book is a translation of a bestselling series in Japan, co-published with Ohmsha, Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan.
Synopsis
The Manga Guide to Databases capitalizes on the international manga phenomenon. This first in a series of EduManga titles from No Starch Press (co-published with Ohmsha, Ltd. of Japan) uses manga to teach the reader about databases. Rather than learning from a dry textbook, readers follow the animated adventures of Tico the Database Fairy (picture an anime Tinkerbell) as she interacts with a colorful cast of characters. Combining technical information with fun stories and illustration, the book covers a thorough array of foundational database knowledge including relational databases, database design, E-R models, SQL, operations, and more. Other titles in the series will cover topics like statistics, electricity, and physics.
Synopsis
Information literacy is generally defined as the ability to recognize situations in which information is needed and to find, evaluate, and effectively use relevant information from a variety of media. It is an essential skill set in all academic disciplines at all levels of education and also in professional and personal life. The recent dramatic changes in the technologies of creating, storing, and retrieving content have made information at once more accessible but also more difficult to critically evaluate, and universities have increasingly come to recognize that effective instruction in information literacy is essential to incoming students success in their academic careers and beyond. With that goal in mind, Matt Upson, C. Michael Hall, and Kevin Cannon have created a unique guide in graphic-novel format that instructs undergraduate students in the fundamental research skills that constitute information literacy that is both academically sound and wildly imaginative and engaging. Following the Association of College and University Libraries Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, the guide stresses skills such as determining the extent of information needed for a research project, accessing the needed information effectively and efficiently, evaluating information and sources critically, incorporating selected information into ones knowledge base, using information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose, and understanding the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information. Each of the eight chapters ends with exercises that allow students to apply their knowledge to relevant scenarios, and the manuscript concludes with a glossary of critical terms.
About the Author
Matt Upson is assistant professor and director of library undergraduate services at Oklahoma State University.C. Michael Hall is a writer, cartoonist, and public speaker who advocates for comics and graphic novels in libraries and educational settings and creates visual aids for libraries.Kevin Cannon is the illustrator of numerous educational and fictional graphic texts, including Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing and The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy.