It is essential that nurses attain solid information
literacy skills before they graduate and move into
practice [1]. Ideally, these skills are introduced in the
nursing education curricula and are expected to be
retained throughout one’s career in clinical and/or
academic practice. Although information-seeking
skills have been identified as critical, a number of
studies reveal that nursing students, as well as
practicing nurses, are not confident in their librarysearching
skills [2, 3]. Research has looked at the types
of resources that nursing students access [4, 5], but
little has been reported in the literature about how
nursing students go about completing their searches,
what difficulties they encounter, and how successful
they are in locating information.
Research is needed to closely examine the searching
process demonstrated by nursing students while they
complete assignments and to attempt to identify the
points in the process where they encounter difficulties
or barriers. Identifying these barriers would provide
opportunities for curriculum improvement for both
nursing faculty and health sciences librarians tasked
with teaching nurses information literacy skills. This
study examines strategies used by students to locate
resources and information for a class assignment. It
looked for patterns in information-seeking behavior,
barriers to accessing information, and strategies used
by students when unsuccessful in their searches.