This study investigated the contribution of staff training and development programmes to effective library and information services in selected university libraries in Ghana. The rationale of the study was to establish the relationship between training and development of library staff and work performance of individual library staff, university libraries and the institutions as a whole, which should reflect in effective and efficient provision of library and information services. The researcher reviewed extensively literature on relevant subject areas related to staff training and development including: the concept of training and development, training needs analysis and assessment, staff training and development, monitoring and evaluation of training, effects of training on job performance, measuring return on investment in training and effectiveness of library and information services. The researcher adopted a survey research method because of the large geographical areas over which the university libraries are located and therefore dispersed population. The researcher adopted mixed methods research approach and thus data was collected using interviews, observations and questionnaires. The researcher also used a mixed sampling method where the researcher combined both probability and non-probability sampling methods in sampling the population. The population for the study comprised library staff, faculty and students from five selected universities in Ghana. The total population from the five universities was 139,463 based on which a sample of 860 was chosen. Thematic content analysis technique was use to analyse qualitative data, while statistical package for service solution was used to analyse quantitative data. The main findings of the study were that staff training and development programmes contributed to the improvement of the knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences of library staff in the universities in Ghana, thereby made university library staff in Ghana more effective and efficient in the provision of library and information services to the university community. However staff development practices alone did not contribute to job performance. Staff development practices were supported with human resource management strategies such as rewards, promotions, bonuses, salary increase and other motivational strategies. Finally the study identified inadequate funding and short falls in the training policies as some of the challenges facing the implementation of staff training and development initiatives in the university libraries in Ghana. It recommends the establishment of training units within the university libraries and adequate budgetary provisions to invest in staff training and development programmes for library staff as well as the adoption of train the trainer concept where staff who participated in training and development programmes are asked to train colleagues and submit a report for the benefit of colleagues as a way of improving staff development practices in the university libraries in Ghana. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on staff training and development and work performance in university libraries. / Information Science

Objetivo: Avaliar os resultados da capacitação de usuários de buscas informatizadas, através do Curso de Acesso às Bases em CD-ROM MEDLINE e LILACS, modalidade do Programa Educativo da Biblioteca da Faculdade de Saúde Publica da USP, oferecido a docentes e alunos da pós-graduação em saúde pública. Método: Questionário estruturado enviado aos 92 participantes dos Cursos, no período de 1993 e 1995. Resultados: Os resultados mostraram que após a participação no Curso 65,2% deles conseguiram autonomia no acesso às bases de dados, 15,2% solicitaram buscas intermediadas pelo bibliotecário, e 19,6% não realizaram forma alguma de busca nas bases da Biblioteca. O usuário que busca esse tipo de capacitação é principalmente o aluno de cursos de pós-graduação (79,3%), com formação básica na área de ciências biológicas (81,5%), para suas atividades acadêmicas (79,4%), com o objetivo de buscar autonomia no acesso à informação (72,8%). A intermediação dos bibliotecários foi solicitada por motivos como: pouca familiaridade com as bases, dificuldade em lidar com tecnologia, confiança na busca realizada pelo bibliotecário e falta de tempo para busca, evidenciando a necessidade do usuário contar também com os serviços de busca realizado pelo bibliotecário, confirmada por 79,4% dos participantes do Curso. O Curso também foi avaliado quanto ao seu conteúdo, estrutura, metodologia, material didático e demais aspectos específicos à organização de capacitação desse nível. Conclusão: O Curso MEDLINE/LILACS está atendendo às necessidades dos usuários das buscas informatizadas, porém a Biblioteca deve ter o compromisso de mantê-lo pois quanto mais tecnologia a Biblioteca disponibiliza, maior é o seu compromisso em capacitar seu usuário. / This study analyses the results of end-user instruction through the databases modulated course in CD-ROM MEDLINE / LILACS, modality of the Library of the School of Public Health of University of S.Paulo Educational Program, offered to health sciences scientists and postgraduate students. It uses a mailed questionnaire which was answered by 66% of the 140 course participants between November/1993 and November/1995. The whole of the category studied was 92 end-users. The results demonstrate that former students, who have done researches in the Library, managed, in most cases (65,2%), to acquire autonomy in using databases, some of them (15,2%) requested librarians interventions, and some of them (19,6%) didn´t use the databases of the Public Health Library, during this period. It determines the end-user searching profile and it shows that the course is mainly looked for by the postgraduate students (79,3%), health area (81,5%), for their academic activities (79,4%) and by those who look for information access autonomy (72,8%) when they decide to participate in such courses. The users who do intermediary searching, appear to use an intermediary mainly for reasons such as: the lack of information technology, lack of familiarity with databases, reliability in the searches made by librarians and, lack of time for searching. The results demonstrate that 79,4% of end-users would like to do both end-user searching and intermediary searching. This study also analyses the Course contents, structure, methodology and didactic materials. This paper gets to the conclusion that end-users, in the whole, consider to be more important that the Library maintains this course and this kind of information user continuous educational program. This survey findings suggests other evaluations to be held to check the end-user’s performance.

Library anxiety has been a concept since 1986, when Constance A. Mellon coined the phenomenon through her qualitative study on feelings that students experienced when interacting with academic libraries. In this essay we are looking at the origin of the concept through earlier research on the known barriers, trying to see what makes library anxiety unique compared to other seemingly related concepts, for example information anxiety. We’ve found many different concepts which can be part of library anxiety, or vice-versa, and many different extensions of LAS – the original scale to measure library anxiety. We aim to unravel some of those concepts we find of importance for library anxiety and its discourse. Looking at this through the lenses of Koselleck’s take on conceptual history, we see possible conflicts on where the concept library anxiety are heading; depending on what aspects of the concept the researcher read into and focusing on and in what context and time the articles were made. We also try to see who is considered responsible for shaping the discourse and if there is some kind of hegemonic struggle therein.

Die ZBW möchte mit der Implementierung eines automatischen Sacherschließungsverfahrens einerseits dem Umstand einer stetigen Zunahme an Onlinedokumenten Rechnung tragen und andererseits bei der Inhaltserschließung neue Wege beschreiten. Neben der Entlastung der intellektuellen Erschließung durch ein semi- oder vollautomatisches Verfahren soll es darüber hinaus möglich sein, ZBW-fremde digitale Informationsressourcen jeglicher Art mit maschineller Hilfe zu indexieren und in einem gemeinsamen Suchraum auffindbar zu machen. Im derzeitigen Projekt werden hierzu die in der ZBW zur Anwendung kommenden Vokabulare (verbale Sacherschließung mit Standard-Thesaurus Wirtschaft, bzw. klassifikatorische Erschließung mit der Standardklassifikation Wirtschaft) für das maschinelle Verfahren angepasst, trainiert und evaluiert. Die Erfahrungen der ZBW mit der organisatorischen Implementierung automatischer Sacherschließung sowie die Möglichkeiten der Auswertung dieser Verfahren stehen im Mittelpunkt des Vortrages.

Im akademischen Bereich sind in Social-Software-Anwendungen wie Connotea, CiteULike und BibSonony umfangreiche Sammlungen von nutzergenerierten Metadaten entstanden. Im Vergleich zu kontrollierten Vokabularen, wie der Schlagwortnormdatei, handelt es sich dabei um personalisierte und in weiten Teilen „chaotische“ Inhaltserschließung. An der Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim wurde in einem DFG-Projekt untersucht, inwieweit das Potential dieser Art von Metadaten für eine bessere und nutzerorientierte Präsentation von Informationsressourcen eingesetzt werden kann. Ein Kernstück der Untersuchung war die Analyse von Tag-Daten des Systems BibSonomy. Es zeigte sich, dass nicht nur die mangelnde semantische Strukturiertheit der Tags, sondern auch ihre heterogene Gestalt einen limitierenden Faktor für die Verwendung in der bibliothekarischen Sacherschließung darstellt. Der Beitrag gibt anhand von Beispielen Einblick in das qualitative und strukturelle Chaos der untersuchten Tags und fasst die Ergebnisse des Projekts zusammen.

This diploma thesis deals with information education of students of distance and combined study at public universities in the Czech Republic. The thesis is divided into the theoretical and practical part. The first part of the thesis introduces concepts related to information education, characterizes the system of higher education in the Czech Republic and describes the specifics of distance and combined form of study. The theoretical part also contains a chapter on information education of distance learning students abroad. The practical part describes the research of educational activities for students of distance / combined study at Czech public universities. The research forms used in the thesis are questionnaire survey and content analysis of the documents of individual colleges of libraries. The conclusion of the paper contains a summary and recommendations for improvement.

Thesis (M.A. (Information Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceptions of final-year students and subject librarians towards the adequacy of the structure and content of library user education programmes at the University of Limpopo (UL) library. Both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies were followed and a descriptive and phenomenological research designs respectively were also adopted for the study. The population for the study consisted of 260 final year students and eight (8) subject librarians, who were selected through systematic random sampling (students) and purposive sampling methods (subject librarians). Data were collected from students and subject librarians using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. An analysis of content for UL library website was also conducted to triangulate the results of the study. Quantitative and qualitative were analysed using excel spreadsheet and thematic analysis respectively. The final year students at the UL showed some positive perceptions and attitudes towards the library in general and to the adequacy of the content and structure of its user education programmes. They are of the opinion that library staff should commit to good customer care principles and regular delivery of user education programmes, and that user education programmes at the UL library should be a credit-bearing module/course for all first-level students in all four faculties. On the structure and content, the findings of the study revealed that the UL library provides user education programmes such as library orientation, bibliographic instruction, information literacy, on-on-one training, online interactive course, library guides and brochures with different content and for different library users. Website content analysis found subject LibGuides were used as platforms for advertising Bibliographic Instruction programmes. However, impediments experienced by subject librarians towards a comprehensive delivering of user education programmes at the UL library include insufficient time allocated to user education programmes, lack of venues to conduct user education sessions, inaccessibility of social media tools, LibGuides not going live, insubstantial partnerships between stakeholders (academics and students) and the v library staff, and low attendance of user education programmes by undergraduate students. The research recommends that there should be a credit-bearing and compulsory information literacy programme offered as part of the curriculum at first levels of study at the UL. Furthermore, library staff need to have a continuous engagement with both academic staff and students, and notify them about important events within the library. The library website should also be upload recorded online user education sessions which can be accessed by library users any time. The library management should also engage ICT to open the social media platforms as that is where most students prefer to interact. This can also be used to deliver user education programmes.

This study applies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework for eScience professionals to data service positions in academic libraries. Understanding the KSAs needed to provide data services is of crucial concern. The current study looks at KSAs of data professionals working in the United States academic libraries. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted to discover the KSAs. The study was divided into two phases, a qualitative content analysis of 260 job advertisements for data professionals for Phase 1, and distribution of a self-administered online survey to data professionals working in academic libraries research data services (RDS) for Phase 2. The discovery of the KSAs from the content analysis of 260 job ads and the survey results from 167 data professionals were analyzed separately, and then Spearman rank order correlation was conducted in order to triangulate the data and compare results. The results from the study provide evidence on what hiring managers seek through job advertisements in terms of KSAs and which KSAs data professionals find to be important for working in RDS. The Spearman rank order correlation found strong agreement between job advertisement KSAs and data professionals perceptions of the KSAs.

No description available.

This master thesis examines how Swedish university libraries are instructing their students on topics related to the critical evaluation of sources and information. The method of analysis was a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the external websites of Sweden’s public university libraries to determine what modes of instruction are being offered, and how these services are being described and made accessible to their users.  The coding of the websites divided their content into four main categories. The first two refer to asynchronous and inactive instruction: Information and Modules. The second two categories refer to synchronous and active instruction: Teaching and Tutoring. The results of the thesis indicate that the most popular modes of instruction related to critical evaluation of sources and information were informative webpages and active teaching which could either take the form of lectures or workshops with 12 out of the 15 libraries hosting or advertising these services.  The thesis concludes that instruction on topics related to critical evaluation of sources and information appears to be central, as most of the university libraries offer several modes of instruction on the topic. However, there were still variations in regard to the accessibility of the services although online instruction still proved popular in tutoring sessions. Moreover, the analysis of terminology and recurring words indicated an emphasis on ‘lower-level’ library skills related to how to recognize scholarly sources rather than ‘higher-level’ critical thinking. Finally, the results suggest that Swedish university libraries are engaging with instruction surrounding evaluation of sources and information although the scope and modes of instruction on the subject vary. This is a two year master’s thesis in Library and Information Science. / Denna masteruppsats undersöker hur svenska universitetsbibliotek instruerar sina studenter i ämnen relaterade till kritisk utvärdering av källor och information. Analysmetoden var en kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys av de externa webbplatserna vid Sveriges offentliga universitetsbibliotek för att fastställa vilka undervisningsformer som erbjuds och hur dessa tjänster beskrivs samt görs tillgängliga för deras användare. Kodningen av webbplatserna delade in innehållet i fyra huvudkategorier. De två första hänvisar till asynkron och inaktiv instruktion: Information och Moduler. De andra två kategorierna avser synkron och aktiv undervisning: Undervisning och Handledning. Resultaten av uppsatsen indikerar att de mest populära undervisningsformerna relaterade till kritisk utvärdering av källor och information var informativa webbsidor och aktiv undervisning som antingen kunde ta formen av föreläsningar eller workshops då 12 av 15 analyserade bibliotek som var värd för eller annonserade dessa tjänster. Uppsatsen drar slutsatsen att undervisning i ämnen relaterade till kritisk utvärdering av källor och information verkar vara central, eftersom de flesta universitetsbiblioteken erbjuder flera undervisningsformer i ämnet. Det fanns dock fortfarande variationer när det gäller tillgängligheten för tjänsterna, även om online-utbildning fortfarande visade sig vara populär i handledningssessioner. Dessutom visade analysen av terminologi och återkommande ord en betoning på biblioteksfärdigheter på 'lägre nivå' relaterade till hur man känner igen vetenskapliga källor snarare än 'högre' kritiskt tänkande. Slutligen tyder resultaten på att svenska universitetsbibliotek är engagerade i undervisning kring evaluering av källor och information även om omfattningen och undervisningssätten i ämnet varierar. Detta är en masteruppsats i biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap.