Please don't ask students to copy information from one source - it's too great a temptation for someone to check out the book, tear those pages from that book, or to hide it, or to copy from another student. Even the most honorable students may reshelve resources in the wrong place, inadvertently causing problems for the next student needing the source. Encourage a critical approach to what students find in the library. That is, don't structure your assignments so that students merely have to find a piece of information, but require them to comment or analyze it. One obvious way to do this is to have the assignment require them to make comparisons between two or more sources of information.
Irrelevant assignments are a bore to everyone concerned.
Whenever possible,tie the assignments to other assignments or to some aspect of the student's personal experiences or field of study. Assignments created around current events may raise another set of problems. There is always a delay between events and when information about them is available in a library. Try to use the correct library terminology for students. Telling them to use the library computers is extremely ambiguous and could mean the PCs and software in the Learning Resources Department, the Online Catalog, CD-ROM periodical index databases, or electronic journals.