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Reference Sources and Services

Notes Reference services presupposes personalised service and helps the user when he/she needs but, user
education presupposes personalised training and orientation of the user with the presumption that
he needs it. For that, user is trained in the use of library so that he/she could search the document of
their interest without anybody’s help.
According to Fjällbrant and Malley—“User education is concerned with the whole information and
communication process and one part of this involves the total interaction of the user with the library.
This should be a continuous process starting with school and public libraries and with possibility of
extension into academic and specialized libraries”.

Definition user Education Programme
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”.

The Need For User Education

User education is essential. It helps publicize library services. It improves the image of the library.
Above all, user education and training are the best ways to implement Ranganathan’s five laws of
library science. User education and training are often fee-based, because developing the infrastructure
for the network environment is very costly. The world still appears to be suffering from an exponential
increase in all kinds of information –bearing material. Even if much of this is of little value, it still
has to be shifted to find the required information. Several new methods of information transfer,
such as mechanized information retrieval systems, are being developed, giving rise to new aspects
of user education. Both educational and research topics are becoming increasingly multidisciplinary
in nature, thereby drawing information from a wider range of sources. Not being able to find
necessary information delays research or decisions. Lack of awareness of information leads to
duplication of effort. Various estimate of the extent and cost of this have been made.
Planning of user education is very important to provide better and more effective information service
to the user, planning of user education programme requires four things (i) orientation (ii) biblio-
graphic instruction (iii) course in literature search and (iv) seminar.
According to Fjällbrant and Malley, user education consists of two elements, namely: orientation
and instruction. These two elements are not mutually exclusive and can be combined.
Orientation is “primarily concerned with ways of introducing the user to the general techniques of
library usage and services available, and the organization, layout and facilities of a particular library”.
Instruction is “concerned with learning to make use of the information resources within specific
subject disciplines”.
In the IFLA/UNESCO Guidelines for the development of public library services, public libraries
are encouraged to assist their library users in developing skills to enable them to make the most
effective use of the library’s resources and services.
User education programmes should be developed in order to assist library users in developing the
necessary skills to access the new information and communication technologies available in libraries.
Library orientation or user orientation programmes form part of such a user education programme.

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