Clear Skies Ahead: Ashley Orehek-Rossi (March)

“I start with asking them, ‘Do you have your research question? Do you know what you want to study?’ If they don’t, we discuss subjects they’re thinking about studying and we try to formulate a question then break down that question into keywords or phrases. Each university library has their own ‘internal Google’ of sorts, and we use that to find specific resources about the question and also use those resources to find other resources. I tell students that if you find that one paper or that one book chapter that gives them everything they’re looking for, then look at their sources. Certain databases will let you see what book chapters or papers or who else used that paper in their research so a student can see where the research is going and where the research went.”

—Ashley Orehek-Rossi, a STEM librarian at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on some of the steps she takes in helping students with research projects. For more, listen to the Clear Skies Ahead podcast, with new episodes released every month.