Overview
Developments in computers, microelectronics, and communication technologies have radically changed the library and information environment. Gone are the days of stand-alone libraries, in which a library was judged less by the quality of its resources and services than by the quantity of materials it had available. Traditional libraries were dominated by print publications and the access mechanisms were also by-and-large manual. The paradigm shift from stand-alone libraries to library and information networks, available via the Internet, can provide end-users with connection to Internet-based services. Moreover, we are surrounded by automated, digital, and virtual libraries as well as by networked data, specialized networks, and library networks.
Multimedia and the Internet have further made the job of library and information professionals more challenging.
Other Developments
• growing recognition of the importance of life-long and individualized learning
• a new enthusiasm for research library instruction and bibliographic control and automation has emerged
• bibliographic instruction, also called library use instruction, or user education, has grown over the years from a simple area of interest to a complex area of study
• instruction librarians have begun to examine the complexities of search strategies, the differing information needs of novices and experts, and the organization of knowledge in various fields in order to better serve their patrons
• all these contribute to the emergence of an important role for the librarian, that of the teacher
These dramatic changes in information technology have made a considerable impact on libraries and their instruction programs. Because of these changes, the library's mission to teach users how to become more effective and efficient, and certainly, more independent in their information seeking, has generated new concerns in developing library user education programs that would be more responsive to their needs. Current user education programs have expanded from teaching tools to teaching concepts and from library instruction to information literacy and lifelong learning.
Introduction
This lecture aims to put library user education in perspective and to explore issues relating to the importance of library user education as an essential activity, such as the content, teaching methods, evaluation studies, and problems of current user instruction programs, the impact of these programs, how new strategies have broadened the program to include the concept of information literacy, and how libraries and librarians can respond to the ever-increasing need for developing innovative strategies that would prove their value to users with emphasis on delivery of information rather than in warehousing them. In effect, the focus will be placed on output and not assets.
Library’s mission in user education
•To teach users how to become more effective, efficient, and independent in their information search
•To develop user education programs responsive to their needs
•To expand these programs to include information literacy and lifelong learning
To put library user education in perspective requires a look at its past and present status. Is library user education an important activity? What programs and problems can be traced through its history? What are the content, teaching methods, evaluation studies, and problems of current programs? What has been the impact of these programs? What does the future hold for library user education? How are the factors of change affecting libraries and library user education? How can librarians respond to these changes?
Definitions
User education simply means educating the library patron, whether student, staff, or member of the public, on how to use the library and its services. It should include any effort or program which will guide and instruct existing and potential users in the recognition and formulation of their information needs, in the effective and efficient use of information services and their assessment.
It is synonymous to “bibliographic instruction,” “library orientation,” and lately, to “information literacy.”
User education encompasses all activity undertaken to help students become efficient users of information--i.e., how to identify the information need and then how to find, evaluate, and select the best information to meet that need.
Activities to achieve that goal include orientation sessions, workshops, handouts, and course-related and course-integrated instruction. The term "library user education" has more recently been broadened to include the concept of information literacy, which will be defined later.
Ideally User Education is a continuous process with the two components: Orientation and Instruction combined as necessary to the needs of the user.
Orientation means familiarization or adjustment to with particular situation. Orientation is concerned with enabling the user to become aware of the existence of the Library and the services available there, aiding the user to learn about the general use of Library.
Instruction is concerned with enabling the user to obtain information required for specific purpose by making full use of the resources and material available in the Library and is concerned with problems of Information retrieval.
History of user education
•1700s
evidence indicates German universities gave library instruction in the form of lectures
•1820s
early rise and rapid decline of library instruction also in the form of lectures
•1900s
basic skills at freshmen level
•1940-1970s
focused on access skills and bibliographic tools; problem solving was introduced
There is evidence suggesting that library instruction was given at German universities in the 17th century in the form of lectures about reference books, study techniques, and how to use the library.
The origins of library user education in the US can be traced back in the 1820s. The earliest evidence of instruction--a librarian lecturing to undergraduates--was found at Harvard College (the oldest and the largest) in the 1820s. Most early academic librarians were professors with part-time library appointments who taught the use of libraries for academic purposes. Library lectures were the chosen form of instruction by such institutions as Harvard, Indiana University, and Columbia. In 1858, Ralph Waldo Emerson indicated a need for a "professor of books" to help people access the books sitting on shelves. It was not until after the Civil War that bibliographic instruction began to take root.
As academic libraries grew in number, librarians became concerned about making collections accessible, and the importance of library instruction again became apparent in the early 1900s.
These, however, were largely individual efforts and did not result in established programs. There was some advocacy for course-related instruction instead of the separate course, but the concept was not developed. Criticism of this freshman instruction began to surface in the late 1920s, deeming it shallow instruction.
From 1945 to 1970, there was increase in the production of knowledge and changes in higher education. Academic libraries underwent rapid collection growth and acquired new techniques of organization and retrieval. Librarians placed their major emphasis on educating their users on getting to use their growing collections.
In the 1950s, library instruction was eclipsed by the development in technical services. This was so pronounced that, in 1956, librarians were advised not to pursue their teaching role.
In the 1960s, two changes revived interest in library user education. Specialization had increased in education with more emphasis on content. At this time, the concept of problem solving to library instruction was introduced. Concomitantly, a rapid democratization and increased complexity of libraries made information-seeking more difficult for students who were expected to cope with a system designed for faculty and graduate students. The instruction that developed in the 1960s and 1970s focused on access skills and bibliographic tools.
• 1980s
integration of library instruction into the library profession and higher education; expansion of user education to information literacy
• 1990s
development of online catalogs and databases, and increased use of Internet drastically changed instruction sessions
• 2000s
use of multimedia aids, online tutorials, modular teaching methods, and heightened focus on information literacy
Current Status
What is being taught and which teaching methods and systems have been implemented in programs?
What do evaluation studies show about the effectiveness of library user education?
What are some problems common to these programs?
Current Methods
•Lecture method
•Seminar, tutorials, and demonstration
•Guided tour
•Audiovisual method
•Computer-aided programmed instruction
•Individual instruction at the Reference desk
•Course-related instruction
•Web-based instruction
Content covered and methods used are central to understanding the current status of user education programs.
For more than a decade, the consensus has been that library user education should focus on the many sources of information available and not on the mechanics of using the system.
Many instruction librarians have espoused, and continue to espouse, the search strategy approach because it provides a conceptual framework for teaching students research techniques. This idea has dominated library instruction since the mid 1970s because it is a simple and adaptable teaching framework. It teaches the use of different types of tools and resources and provides an outline for systematic information seeking that is broadly applicable, comprehensive, and time saving.
In addition to teaching students how to find information, librarians now recognize the importance of teaching critical thinking skills to enable students to evaluate and select the best information for their needs.
Below is a sample of a teaching module for library instruction:
Levels of User Education
It is generally agreed that there are three levels of user education which have been summarized by Rathore (1992):
•at the beginning of every academic year or semester ... applicable to all those who are using the library for the first time, e.g. Library orientation and library tour
•subject oriented instruction for undergraduates at a stage when they are admitted to a special branch or subject of their choice or at the time of project work
•Literature search training ...provided at the beginning of their research work
Other Levels of User Education
•Undergraduate Level a general introduction to the geography of the university library, as well as some useful information about the library catalog, reference sources, etc.
•Post-graduate Level In addition to the above information, instruction on classification system, bibliographies available, library services offered, etc.
•Research Scholar Level detailed info about literature search, compilation of bibliographies for their projects, technical writing, giving footnotes, etc.
Faculty Level to conduct fruitful research and enable faculty to teach, they need to know the steps in literature search, information retrieval, technical writings, interlibrary loans, relevant library services, etc.
Knowing which level of user education is required by a particular group of students enables the librarian to determine the aims and objectives of the session.
The three main aims of user education regardless of level are:
to train the user to exploit the library resources effectively
to provide the user with the skills for independent information seeking
to encourage the user to seek the assistance of library professionals
Evaluation of library instruction
What has been the impact of library instruction as measured in evaluation studies?
There are two purposes for evaluation:
One is to measure the effectiveness of instruction for guidance in how to improve the program (formative evaluation). Examples: Exercises, short tests or quizzes
The other is to measure the effect of library instruction on the students and their performance (summative evaluation).
Most evaluation of library user education has been formative. Librarians have tended not to focus on evaluation studies that would demonstrate the impact of library instruction on student learning or attitude.
Most evaluation studies done since the 1970s fall into one of three methods: opinion surveys, knowledge testing, and library use observation.
Common Problems
•lack of student motivation or faculty cooperation
•generic instruction session trivializes information gathering
•course-related instruction is simply oral bibliography
•audiovisual does not hold users' interest
•computer-assisted instruction is very time-intensive to produce
•Instruction is not integrated into the curriculum
Course-related instruction
•viewed as one of the most effective user education methods.
•requires faculty cooperation and the faculty member's authority to decide when instruction is given and who receives it
•librarians have limited control over course-related instruction
•very staff-intensive and the high ratio of students to librarians is a big problem
•librarians need to continue to look for additional ways of reaching students thru workshops and handouts, and library assignment consultations
Information literacy
•now the avowed objective of most library user education program
•is an expansion of instruction as to objectives, materials, and methods
•has evolved in the way that instruction evolved from library orientation into bibliographic instruction
•encompasses the entire world of information seeking to prepare people to pursue the concept of lifelong learning
•extends its objectives to teaching information-seeking skills to all ages and at all times
•prepares people to use information effectively in any situation
Information literacy defined…
A number of authors, grappling with the concept of information literacy, do so by defining an information-literate person. The American Library Association defines such people as those who:
“recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the information needed.”
Information literacy may be defined as the ability to access and evaluate information effectively for problem solving and decision making.
•Information literate people know how to be lifelong learners in an information society.
•Information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how information is organized, how to find it, how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them.
An information literate person …
•recognizes the need for information
•recognizes that accurate and complete information is the basis for intelligent decision- making
•identifies potential sources of information
•develops successful search strategies
•accesses sources of information, including computer-based and other technologies
•evaluates, organizes, and integrates information for practical application
•uses information in critical thinking and problem solving
Put in another way, information literacy entails:
(a) a search process in which a person attempts to determine where the desired information is likely to be located; and
(b) an evaluation process in which the suitability and sufficiency of gathered information for retrieval questions is determined
The challenge is not the acquiring of information but rather the rejection of the nnecessary and the manipulation of the essential.
Innovative strategies
•The increase in complexity of the information environment requires that librarians become proactive in teaching information skills.
•An expanded library user education program will include teaching the structure of information, use of new electronic formats, and applying critical thinking to information.
•Librarians will have to maximize the use of technology to teach more skills to greater numbers of users.
•More complex expert systems will be developed to help users with in-depth use of complex abstracting and indexing services.
•The emphasis will be on problem-solving and on obtaining and accessing information rather than on ownership.
•User instruction will need to provide students and faculty with basic, intermediate, and advanced guidance in use of the library.
•As to methods, instruction should employ short modules that allow self-directed study with more emphasis on instructional content and less on the media used. This is called the modular teaching approach.
•The system should be one that users are comfortable in using and gives them a sense of control over it.
•Users should receive guidance on which resources are best for their needs, and basic instruction on search technique, and should feel assured that the system is not difficult and is evolving toward a more efficient, effective, and easy-to-use system.
Innovative strategies
•Staff responsible for the future management of the user education program, will need to liaise closely with all academic areas, groups and individual users to ensure that it meets the increasingly diverse needs of users.
•The program must reflect the varied levels of skills of those users.
•Library user education should become an integral part, formal if possible, of the curriculum of the University.
•It must be monitored and evaluated to ensure it is relevant to users’ needs.
•Those responsible for user education will be expected to appraise and implement national and international developments, if they are appropriate to local needs.
Conclusion
At the end of the 20th century, college and university libraries face enormous challenges and opportunities. As campuses move into the information age, the mission and role of the library is being redefined. While the amount of information libraries need to acquire continues to increase, the resources available to do so are insufficient.
The growing universe of print-based publications and digital documents on the one hand, and the declining universe of library budgets on the other, can be handled confidently by adopting certain strategies, such as by developing critical thinking skills, as well as promoting information literacy at large. In the near future, users should expect timely access to quality information.
Incorporating end-user education in academic libraries by developing training programs for the library and information professionals, as well as the end-users, will hopefully improve learning attitudes and network-related competence to use with information and communication technologies.
Multimedia and the Internet have further made the job of library and information professionals more challenging.
Other Developments
• growing recognition of the importance of life-long and individualized learning
• a new enthusiasm for research library instruction and bibliographic control and automation has emerged
• bibliographic instruction, also called library use instruction, or user education, has grown over the years from a simple area of interest to a complex area of study
• instruction librarians have begun to examine the complexities of search strategies, the differing information needs of novices and experts, and the organization of knowledge in various fields in order to better serve their patrons
• all these contribute to the emergence of an important role for the librarian, that of the teacher
These dramatic changes in information technology have made a considerable impact on libraries and their instruction programs. Because of these changes, the library's mission to teach users how to become more effective and efficient, and certainly, more independent in their information seeking, has generated new concerns in developing library user education programs that would be more responsive to their needs. Current user education programs have expanded from teaching tools to teaching concepts and from library instruction to information literacy and lifelong learning.
Introduction
This lecture aims to put library user education in perspective and to explore issues relating to the importance of library user education as an essential activity, such as the content, teaching methods, evaluation studies, and problems of current user instruction programs, the impact of these programs, how new strategies have broadened the program to include the concept of information literacy, and how libraries and librarians can respond to the ever-increasing need for developing innovative strategies that would prove their value to users with emphasis on delivery of information rather than in warehousing them. In effect, the focus will be placed on output and not assets.
Library’s mission in user education
•To teach users how to become more effective, efficient, and independent in their information search
•To develop user education programs responsive to their needs
•To expand these programs to include information literacy and lifelong learning
To put library user education in perspective requires a look at its past and present status. Is library user education an important activity? What programs and problems can be traced through its history? What are the content, teaching methods, evaluation studies, and problems of current programs? What has been the impact of these programs? What does the future hold for library user education? How are the factors of change affecting libraries and library user education? How can librarians respond to these changes?
Definitions
User education simply means educating the library patron, whether student, staff, or member of the public, on how to use the library and its services. It should include any effort or program which will guide and instruct existing and potential users in the recognition and formulation of their information needs, in the effective and efficient use of information services and their assessment.
It is synonymous to “bibliographic instruction,” “library orientation,” and lately, to “information literacy.”
User education encompasses all activity undertaken to help students become efficient users of information--i.e., how to identify the information need and then how to find, evaluate, and select the best information to meet that need.
Activities to achieve that goal include orientation sessions, workshops, handouts, and course-related and course-integrated instruction. The term "library user education" has more recently been broadened to include the concept of information literacy, which will be defined later.
Ideally User Education is a continuous process with the two components: Orientation and Instruction combined as necessary to the needs of the user.
Orientation means familiarization or adjustment to with particular situation. Orientation is concerned with enabling the user to become aware of the existence of the Library and the services available there, aiding the user to learn about the general use of Library.
Instruction is concerned with enabling the user to obtain information required for specific purpose by making full use of the resources and material available in the Library and is concerned with problems of Information retrieval.
History of user education
•1700s
evidence indicates German universities gave library instruction in the form of lectures
•1820s
early rise and rapid decline of library instruction also in the form of lectures
•1900s
basic skills at freshmen level
•1940-1970s
focused on access skills and bibliographic tools; problem solving was introduced
There is evidence suggesting that library instruction was given at German universities in the 17th century in the form of lectures about reference books, study techniques, and how to use the library.
The origins of library user education in the US can be traced back in the 1820s. The earliest evidence of instruction--a librarian lecturing to undergraduates--was found at Harvard College (the oldest and the largest) in the 1820s. Most early academic librarians were professors with part-time library appointments who taught the use of libraries for academic purposes. Library lectures were the chosen form of instruction by such institutions as Harvard, Indiana University, and Columbia. In 1858, Ralph Waldo Emerson indicated a need for a "professor of books" to help people access the books sitting on shelves. It was not until after the Civil War that bibliographic instruction began to take root.
As academic libraries grew in number, librarians became concerned about making collections accessible, and the importance of library instruction again became apparent in the early 1900s.
These, however, were largely individual efforts and did not result in established programs. There was some advocacy for course-related instruction instead of the separate course, but the concept was not developed. Criticism of this freshman instruction began to surface in the late 1920s, deeming it shallow instruction.
From 1945 to 1970, there was increase in the production of knowledge and changes in higher education. Academic libraries underwent rapid collection growth and acquired new techniques of organization and retrieval. Librarians placed their major emphasis on educating their users on getting to use their growing collections.
In the 1950s, library instruction was eclipsed by the development in technical services. This was so pronounced that, in 1956, librarians were advised not to pursue their teaching role.
In the 1960s, two changes revived interest in library user education. Specialization had increased in education with more emphasis on content. At this time, the concept of problem solving to library instruction was introduced. Concomitantly, a rapid democratization and increased complexity of libraries made information-seeking more difficult for students who were expected to cope with a system designed for faculty and graduate students. The instruction that developed in the 1960s and 1970s focused on access skills and bibliographic tools.
• 1980s
integration of library instruction into the library profession and higher education; expansion of user education to information literacy
• 1990s
development of online catalogs and databases, and increased use of Internet drastically changed instruction sessions
• 2000s
use of multimedia aids, online tutorials, modular teaching methods, and heightened focus on information literacy
Current Status
What is being taught and which teaching methods and systems have been implemented in programs?
What do evaluation studies show about the effectiveness of library user education?
What are some problems common to these programs?
Current Methods
•Lecture method
•Seminar, tutorials, and demonstration
•Guided tour
•Audiovisual method
•Computer-aided programmed instruction
•Individual instruction at the Reference desk
•Course-related instruction
•Web-based instruction
Content covered and methods used are central to understanding the current status of user education programs.
For more than a decade, the consensus has been that library user education should focus on the many sources of information available and not on the mechanics of using the system.
Many instruction librarians have espoused, and continue to espouse, the search strategy approach because it provides a conceptual framework for teaching students research techniques. This idea has dominated library instruction since the mid 1970s because it is a simple and adaptable teaching framework. It teaches the use of different types of tools and resources and provides an outline for systematic information seeking that is broadly applicable, comprehensive, and time saving.
In addition to teaching students how to find information, librarians now recognize the importance of teaching critical thinking skills to enable students to evaluate and select the best information for their needs.
Below is a sample of a teaching module for library instruction:
Levels of User Education
It is generally agreed that there are three levels of user education which have been summarized by Rathore (1992):
•at the beginning of every academic year or semester ... applicable to all those who are using the library for the first time, e.g. Library orientation and library tour
•subject oriented instruction for undergraduates at a stage when they are admitted to a special branch or subject of their choice or at the time of project work
•Literature search training ...provided at the beginning of their research work
Other Levels of User Education
•Undergraduate Level a general introduction to the geography of the university library, as well as some useful information about the library catalog, reference sources, etc.
•Post-graduate Level In addition to the above information, instruction on classification system, bibliographies available, library services offered, etc.
•Research Scholar Level detailed info about literature search, compilation of bibliographies for their projects, technical writing, giving footnotes, etc.
Faculty Level to conduct fruitful research and enable faculty to teach, they need to know the steps in literature search, information retrieval, technical writings, interlibrary loans, relevant library services, etc.
Knowing which level of user education is required by a particular group of students enables the librarian to determine the aims and objectives of the session.
The three main aims of user education regardless of level are:
to train the user to exploit the library resources effectively
to provide the user with the skills for independent information seeking
to encourage the user to seek the assistance of library professionals
Evaluation of library instruction
What has been the impact of library instruction as measured in evaluation studies?
There are two purposes for evaluation:
One is to measure the effectiveness of instruction for guidance in how to improve the program (formative evaluation). Examples: Exercises, short tests or quizzes
The other is to measure the effect of library instruction on the students and their performance (summative evaluation).
Most evaluation of library user education has been formative. Librarians have tended not to focus on evaluation studies that would demonstrate the impact of library instruction on student learning or attitude.
Most evaluation studies done since the 1970s fall into one of three methods: opinion surveys, knowledge testing, and library use observation.
Common Problems
•lack of student motivation or faculty cooperation
•generic instruction session trivializes information gathering
•course-related instruction is simply oral bibliography
•audiovisual does not hold users' interest
•computer-assisted instruction is very time-intensive to produce
•Instruction is not integrated into the curriculum
Course-related instruction
•viewed as one of the most effective user education methods.
•requires faculty cooperation and the faculty member's authority to decide when instruction is given and who receives it
•librarians have limited control over course-related instruction
•very staff-intensive and the high ratio of students to librarians is a big problem
•librarians need to continue to look for additional ways of reaching students thru workshops and handouts, and library assignment consultations
Information literacy
•now the avowed objective of most library user education program
•is an expansion of instruction as to objectives, materials, and methods
•has evolved in the way that instruction evolved from library orientation into bibliographic instruction
•encompasses the entire world of information seeking to prepare people to pursue the concept of lifelong learning
•extends its objectives to teaching information-seeking skills to all ages and at all times
•prepares people to use information effectively in any situation
Information literacy defined…
A number of authors, grappling with the concept of information literacy, do so by defining an information-literate person. The American Library Association defines such people as those who:
“recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the information needed.”
Information literacy may be defined as the ability to access and evaluate information effectively for problem solving and decision making.
•Information literate people know how to be lifelong learners in an information society.
•Information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how information is organized, how to find it, how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them.
An information literate person …
•recognizes the need for information
•recognizes that accurate and complete information is the basis for intelligent decision- making
•identifies potential sources of information
•develops successful search strategies
•accesses sources of information, including computer-based and other technologies
•evaluates, organizes, and integrates information for practical application
•uses information in critical thinking and problem solving
Put in another way, information literacy entails:
(a) a search process in which a person attempts to determine where the desired information is likely to be located; and
(b) an evaluation process in which the suitability and sufficiency of gathered information for retrieval questions is determined
The challenge is not the acquiring of information but rather the rejection of the nnecessary and the manipulation of the essential.
Innovative strategies
•The increase in complexity of the information environment requires that librarians become proactive in teaching information skills.
•An expanded library user education program will include teaching the structure of information, use of new electronic formats, and applying critical thinking to information.
•Librarians will have to maximize the use of technology to teach more skills to greater numbers of users.
•More complex expert systems will be developed to help users with in-depth use of complex abstracting and indexing services.
•The emphasis will be on problem-solving and on obtaining and accessing information rather than on ownership.
•User instruction will need to provide students and faculty with basic, intermediate, and advanced guidance in use of the library.
•As to methods, instruction should employ short modules that allow self-directed study with more emphasis on instructional content and less on the media used. This is called the modular teaching approach.
•The system should be one that users are comfortable in using and gives them a sense of control over it.
•Users should receive guidance on which resources are best for their needs, and basic instruction on search technique, and should feel assured that the system is not difficult and is evolving toward a more efficient, effective, and easy-to-use system.
Innovative strategies
•Staff responsible for the future management of the user education program, will need to liaise closely with all academic areas, groups and individual users to ensure that it meets the increasingly diverse needs of users.
•The program must reflect the varied levels of skills of those users.
•Library user education should become an integral part, formal if possible, of the curriculum of the University.
•It must be monitored and evaluated to ensure it is relevant to users’ needs.
•Those responsible for user education will be expected to appraise and implement national and international developments, if they are appropriate to local needs.
Conclusion
At the end of the 20th century, college and university libraries face enormous challenges and opportunities. As campuses move into the information age, the mission and role of the library is being redefined. While the amount of information libraries need to acquire continues to increase, the resources available to do so are insufficient.
The growing universe of print-based publications and digital documents on the one hand, and the declining universe of library budgets on the other, can be handled confidently by adopting certain strategies, such as by developing critical thinking skills, as well as promoting information literacy at large. In the near future, users should expect timely access to quality information.
Incorporating end-user education in academic libraries by developing training programs for the library and information professionals, as well as the end-users, will hopefully improve learning attitudes and network-related competence to use with information and communication technologies.
SOURCE: paarl@yahoogroups.com
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