Search and Destroy?

I feel pretty confident in my ability to find answers to even the most obscure questions. The internet has literally put the world at my fingertips. Almost every question that friends and family pose to me is something that I can find and answer for them with just a few minutes online.

These questions are BY FAR the exception. We have intentionally made these questions fall into the category of those that would probably arise only once every couple of years...not 24 per every two weeks. While it is a novel approach to making a simulated research desk...I'm not sure that we wouldn't (as a class) be best suited with a "race" format of addressing and answering questions online. These questions are designed to take time...yet a real research desk setting (in this modern age) seems to be more about speed and calm under pressure. I've developed that on my own for personal reasons...but I think the rest of my cohort could really benefit from this different sort of pressure. We need to figure out how to use Google under the pressure of a patron sitting and staring at us AS WELL AS using the few databases that may be available to our particular library setting. That is just where we are as a society, and the majority of people over 35...as well as a deceivingly large portion of those of us under that age...just aren't experienced enough to do it.

I would propose breaking up the S&D questions into two categories...half that are pretty obscure and best answered slowly on our own, but the other half used as a speed game in class. I think that could really help us expand as researchers just as much as these nuanced questions that we currently delve into!