Now for the Hard Part: End User Education

Abstract

The information needs of end users are increasing and are becoming more complex. The plethora of resources and the resultant data smog create a challenge for knowledge navigators. As libraries commit increasing resources to a digital environment they need to maximise the effective use of these resources. The key is end user education by information specialists, adding value to digital libraries. The challenge is to redefine our role to ensure relevance in an age of end user access, digitisation and IT support. This paper draws on the practical experience of implementing two end user programs in a Sydney public library: Intemet Training Centre (target group: the community); Information advantage (target group: local Tafe classes) and discusses market research, course design and evatuation, and other challenges of implementation. Edited version of a paper presented at Digital Libraries Technology 99--the third annual conference Transforming library information services for the digital era 22-23 July 1999 To describe digital resources as user friendly we must make a number of assumptions about the user and the way in which the information is presented. It must be assumed that end users have a basic level of computer literacy, and the critical thinking skills to evaluate the resources they find. Meanwhile the resources have a great variation in software functionality and layout as well as the type, scope and level of information they include. The other variable which compounds the challenge to the user is the variety of resources: catalogues, internet, and networked and standalone cdroms. Great strides are being made in ensuring modern interfaces are seamless, but there is still a long way to go. There are technical challenges in designing a useful database, and issues of access and storage. Many more challenges are to be found in ensuring that users can actually gain the knowledge they require from it. After using Medline (in any one of its five internet interfaces), Web of science, Dialog, e-journal packages and library catalogues, users are generally left confused. How can they remember the truncation symbols they should use in each database? Or what is actually in the fields ...? Or be fully conversant with the software required to read the full text products? How many have had unforgettable experiences retrieving material that was not relevant to their search, or had problems with incompatible software?[1] The model client, who is information literate, will have little difficulty in adapting to a well designed system. Much has been written recently about the need for bibliographic instruction in academic libraries to combat what Raine describes as `the dearth of research experience and the clear phenomenon of `library anxiety'.[2] This indicates that the model client is rare indeed. If model clients are not to be found in academic libraries, how much less likely are they to be discovered in public libraries, which they may visit infrequently as the need arises? Users have always required assistance in seeking information. Librarians, as knowledge navigators, have taken on this role for at least a century. Yet in these final years of the millennium, information overload has become a cliche. Australians are generally more educated and those who are not, are seeking to become so. There has been an exponential increase in mature age students, and a general acceptance that people will retrain at least once during their careers. Research based school curricula push students or their parents into libraries, often with unrealistic expectations of what can be found. Resource poor institutions are stretched trying to provide adequate learning resources. In an age of convenience, the time poor expect magic bullet solutions to their questions. In the popular imagination, the internet has become a modern version of the philosopher's stone, the key to the universe. …

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