Developing the Library Curriculum

Abstract

The majority of articles on curriculum development consider how librarians can work with other members of an organisation to slot information skills training into an existing teaching programme or training course.1-3 This is very important to show the importance of the library and gain co-operation with other parts of an organisation. However, what about the library team as its own developer of a curriculum? By developing their own schedule and running a series of courses, the library will then be capable of catering for different information needs of the individuals who may come into the library. It is not always possible to anticipate which elements of library work, plan a search, identify possible sources, perform a search, people will need help with. It will also be the case that not every library user will need help in all aspects of this. By defining a curriculum and creating a range of classes that library users can attend, the library service should be capable of meeting the range of information needs. This feature will consider the term curriculum, the different kinds of curriculum and how the principles can be applied and evaluated to create a series of courses for the library to offer as well as considering specific elements such as literacy and numeracy levels that should be paid attention to. If one was looking to define curriculum, we could follow what Pinar4 summarises on the reverse of his book as ‘an autobiographical method that provides a strategy…, a way for both individuals and groups to understand their situations leading to action’. Whilst this definition is quite simplistic and encompassing there is in fact much more to it than that. The curriculum as we know can be interpreted on a number of levels. Kelly5 has classified the term to encompass more than the traditional meaning of being equated with a syllabus. Instead curriculums can exhibit a number of elements that help to define it. It can be total, hidden, planned and received and formal and informal. Each of these will be explored in turn. The total curriculum is a term that encompasses ‘the overall rationale for any educational programme (p. 3).5 The rationale will in this case of developing a series of classes along the lines of the SCONUL framework,6 giving people the skills they need to become information literate or it could be a more simplistic rationale to compliment a particular user group in the library, for example, nurses who are studying for postgraduate degree courses and need extra support whilst at work. The hidden curriculum is ‘the things which pupils learn at school because of the way in which the work of the school is planned and organised, and through the materials provided, but which are not in themselves overtly included in the planning or even the consciousness of those responsible for the school arrangements’ (p. 4).5 It is possible that along with promoting skills development, these courses will also help to develop confidence to perform literature searches on their own and progress to be capable of comfortably using library and information resources from their own home not only when they are on the courses but throughout their career. The planned and received curriculum is also known as the official and actual curriculum. ‘The official or planned curriculum is what is laid down in the syllabuses, the actual of the received curriculum is the reality of the pupils’ experience’ (p. 5).5 This is the information that has been laid down in the scheme of work and detailed in the general and specific objectives. The formal curriculum versus the informal curriculum is the ‘formal activities for which the timetable of the school allocates specific periods of teaching time and the informal activities that go on usually on a voluntary basis, at lunch times or after school’ (p. 6).5 It may be necessary for there to be follow-up time with individual library users once they have attended courses to help them complete some of the work that they start in the sessions and also to actually help them with work that they receive from particular courses that they may be attending or that are work related. There are four approaches that exist in curriculum development and each one is influenced by a number of different forces and they all serve to fulfil a specific purpose and to achieve a number of benefits. Indeed it will be the case that to achieve a given outcome it will be necessary to choose the design of the curriculum appropriately. Curriculum as a product and an instrumental educational tool can be compared to the behaviourist learning theory. It is an approach that is dependent on the setting of clear objectives and arose from Franklin Bobbit an early proponent of the approach who felt that education was too vague and teachers did not have a set purpose (p. 58).5. Tyler has been closely associated with the creation of this approach and he believes that there are four fundamental questions that must be answered when developing a curriculum.7 What are the aims and objectives of the curriculum? Which learning experiences meet these aims and objectives? How can the extent to which these aims and objectives have been met be evaluated? How can these learning experiences be organised? Whilst the product approach may be relevant for the students, it is possible that they would also benefit from the curriculum being seen as a process. This looks at the development of the learner as a whole and allows the teacher to ‘focus attention on developing the understanding of the pupil rather than on the transmission of predetermined content or the achievement of prestated behavioural changes’ (p. 81).5 The process approach can be seen as a development of the product approach and it looks not at what is being learnt but at how it is learnt. It focuses on the learning experience and will look at: teachers’ activities and therefore the teachers’ role, students’ and learners’ activities perhaps the most important feature and the conditions in which the learning takes place.7 This has been seen to be a useful approach because it will set learners for life and give them the skills to carry on learning when they are not in an educational establishment.8 After the curriculum approach has been defined, it is important to recognise that there are a number of curriculum models. Within a library setting, perhaps the most useful model is the modular curriculum. This means that there are a number of ‘free standing units of learning which can be linked together to form a coherent programme’.9 It is important that the learning can take place independently for some sessions because it is quite likely that library users will not be capable of attending all of the sessions that a library will arrange. It may be the case that within a modular course there are a few sessions that must be completed in order and this part of the curriculum will conform to the more linear style model. This could be, for example, critical appraisal of a number of different kinds of studies and study types, randomised controlled trial, cohort studies and qualitative information. Whilst it may appear that they are covering different topics it is necessary to attend the first session so as to understand the purpose of critical appraisal, and where many of the key terms which are used when critically appraising all types of information are explained. The Basic Skills Agency define basic skills as having ‘the ability to read, write and speak in English/Welsh and to use mathematics at a level necessary to function and progress at work and in society in general’ (p. 1).10 Whilst it can be recognised that library users attending library training sessions will have some elements of basic skill attainment, they may not have all of the required elements or indeed be happy with their progression. These are more specifically described in the Agency’s 3-year priority plan and comprise improving speaking and listening; maintaining and improving basic skills at transition points in an individual’s life; engaging the disengaged in improving their basic skills. The language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) levels of library users will vary because they will all be at different stages in their careers, and will have had different educational experiences. It is important then that these basic skills are embedded not only now in library training sessions but are developed throughout their career—the Skills for Life Quality Initiative. This initiative is concerned with embedding skills into teaching and training sessions. It will come as no surprise that the Learning and Skills Council found that ‘a learner’s vocational success can easily be affected by poor development of LLN skills’ (p. 7).11 It is important that any training session recognises where and when library users may potentially need help and try to make arrangements for these. One simple but effective approach that is already used widely is team teaching, where teachers who have different but complimentary skills work together; for example, some librarians may have more subject-specific knowledge, whilst others may have in-depth searching knowledge. This can be taken a step further and could include specialists who are concerned with literacy and number development. If you look at your scheme of work you can identify where team teaching would be most useful. In a session teaching literature searching, looking at how to combine search sets using Boolean operatives and parentheses, it is important that the correct sets are chosen, otherwise the right information will not be returned. This may sound simple, but as already highlighted it is the basic numeracy and literacy skills where people often struggle. A further example where a session would perhaps need extra support is devising a search strategy (see Table 1). The skills supported here are language and literacy. It will utilise knowledge that the library users probably already have and ask them to frame it in a completely different way to that they are used to. Whilst these are sessions that have been highlighted as being potential areas where support is needed, it will be necessary to ensure that support is in place throughout the curriculum for unexpected need. This means that checking will need to take place throughout the sessions to ensure that library users are keeping up and understanding the work that they are completing. This may be through informal observation of tasks as they are being completed or through questioning students about the work that they are doing. Examples of which can be seen in Table 2. This will highlight areas for both the student and the teacher to work on. It is readily accepted that we need to evaluate and reflect on what we do; so, we may want to evaluate the sessions in terms of how useful a session is and whether it should run. The evaluation cycle in Fig. 1 is one that can be followed when evaluating a service.12 This focuses on the whole process from start to finish and will be useful when looking at a curriculum because each session is considered individually. The evaluation cycle according to Frost12 The six points above can be translated into a table from which the individual sessions and the whole of the course can be evaluated (see Table 3). It will be necessary to ensure that the evaluation is highly relevant to the students to encourage them to complete it. It may also be useful if only a few students were approached each session and action points could be carried over to the next time that session is run to improve on it. Whilst it is important to show how the library is at the heart of any organisation and how it can be adapted to fit in with differing needs, for example, providing training sessions when requested, these will fit into an existing curriculum or quite often be developed alongside a teaching programme. It is also important for the library to have its own curriculum of teaching so that they can meet the needs of library users who do not actively take part in learning or who need extra support. By showcasing what the library can offer in terms of different training sessions rather than just the typical literature searching course, the importance of the library can be highlighted further and perhaps this will then lead to instances where the library can be involved in the planning stage of courses or teaching programmes and develop an integrated teaching programme which will reinforce the importance of the library.

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