Page 73 - DLIS102_LIBRARY_AND_ITS_USERS

Library and its Users

Notes 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.

User education for students is necessary
If study programmes are to be based on the students’ active search for knowledge, then students
must acquire sounder knowledge of searching for, evaluating and utilizing scientific and scholarly
information.
Libraries today offer comprehensive courses in library orientation and information retrieval
(i.e., “user education” in library terminology). Such courses have become better organized and certain
larger libraries have special user education divisions. However, the courses vary in scope and are
not always well integrated into the teaching process. User education ought to be integrated as much
as possible into the different parts of each study programme. Moreover, librarians and lecturers in
co-operation with each other should hold the courses.

User education for lecturers

New pedagogic methods, new technology and extended study programmes necessitate the further
development of user education. Development is being hindered by the fact that user education often
lacks permanent formal status and position, and shortcomings in the pedagogic competence of
librarians, whose education has so far included little training in teaching skills. Moreover, libraries
must offer a much broader selection of courses in user education for lecturers. Ideally lecturers ought
to be much more proficient in information retrieval and library orientation than their students, so
that they can actively use the library as a resource in their teaching. This is not always the case, which
can be difficult to admit.

11.3 Levels

This study examines how user education programmes are planned, organized and implemented in
academic libraries in Southern Africa. It further examines the influences of information technology
on user education and on the problems experienced in various institutions.
Fleming (1990) defines user education “as various programmes of instruction, education and
exploration provided by libraries to users to enable them to make more effective, efficient and
independent use of information sources and services to which these libraries provide access”.
Some specific components of user education are:
1. Librarians introducing new students, some of whom come from school systems where
there are generally no school librarians or well established libraries, to the complexities
of university library facilities.
2. Librarians familiarizing users, who have little or no information seeking skills at all with
a broad range of library resources in order to develop library skills.
3. Librarians educating users on how to find materials manually or electronically using
on-line public access catalogues and CD-ROMs.

68 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY