The Grace Van Dyke Bird Library is currently offering free workshops for Bakersfield College students wanting to learn how to conduct college-level research.

Each workshop works on a “first-come-first serve” basis, but the weekend and more popular classes fill up to the point of librarians having to turn students away. The average class size is around 18 students and workshops will be held in room L217 in the library.

“They don’t come to the library,” said librarian Marci Lingo, laughingly referring to the biggest mistake students make when it comes to doing research.

“Many don’t search Google effectively for scholarly material,” said Lingo.

The idea for doing the classes has been in the works for over ten years and was spurred on by a recent report that shows that college students don’t know how to conduct college-level research.

“We started small and they’ve grown in popularity and the number of topics,” said Lingo.

This semester the library will hold 70 workshops on seven different topics that vary from something as general as “Research Strategies” to the more specific ones like “Ethics in Research.”

In the Spring 2011 semester, over 1,200 students attended the workshops offered.

“When they leave the rate of satisfaction goes up,” said Lingo about the classes.

Each workshop includes an introduction into the database, and a  topic. They usually last about an hour.

Students who have attended past presentations left comments on evaluation forms like, “Too much to write here; the workshop was very helpful,” and, “I recommend ALL students take it. Especially freshman.”

“Generally speaking, students usually are really appreciative,” said Lingo.

A schedule of all workshops is available at the Grace Van Dyke Bird Library.