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The aim of this research is to investigate the development of locating information in books in the fifth grade of the elementary school. The dilemma, according to the review of the literature, is that many students are not competent to locate information even in the most common source, the book, and that those who are responsible for developing these skills in schools are themselves suffering from some kind of weakness. Indeed, there is not even a program which is accepted by the whole scientific community in this area. The review of the literature also provides us with some idea about bridging the gaps of those who are responsible for the development of these skills in schools, and brings us closer to the very heart of the contents of these skills. Based on this state-of-the-art, the researcher designed a learning package program relating to the location of information in books for fifth graders of the elementary school, and he also designed a test for measuring the efficiency of this program. The learning package program was implemented and tested in Israel in two elementary schools with teacher-librarians and with well equipped libraries through collaboration between the researcher and the educational context. One of the schools was of a low socio-economic status, and the other was of a high socio-economic status. On the one hand the results strengthen the findings of the literature regarding the skill gaps of students and the lack of sufficient stimulation in schools, and on the other hand the results also reveal the possibility of improving, in many cases significantly, the location of information in books, by exposing students to the learning package program. This study reveals, moreover, that it is possible to bring teachers closer to the area of locating information in books in particular, and even to close the gaps between information skills and the educational context in general. Implications for teachers and librarians are included as well as recommendations for future research.

Despite the efforts that have been made to develop the information skills of undergraduate students, there are still limitations that one shot sessions of face-to-face library instruction or online tutorials present when they are the only options used to develop specific information skills in students. The purpose of this study was to investigate if the design and implementation of online learning communities are effective in supporting students while they are developing specific information skills. To prove this effectiveness, the use of online learning communities was compared to two other options of delivering instruction: online tutorials and one shot sessions of face-to-face instruction. Participants in this study were undergraduate students registered in four sections of an English course. The first group was the control group; they received one session of library face-to-face instruction. The second group participated through the online learning community. The third group completed four online tutorials, and the fourth group completed four online tutorials and participated through the online learning community. Data was gathered through two sources: (1) a pre-test and a post-test administered to all four groups, and (2) focus groups performed on all groups except the control group. After running ANOVA on the pre-test scores and not finding significant differences, ANOVA was run again on the post-test scores. The results from the post-test revealed that there was significant statistical difference among the four groups. The follow-up Tukey test revealed that the scores from the online learning community group significantly differed from the other groups, proving it to be the most effective treatment. On the other hand, the online tutorial group did not perform in a better way than the other groups, but when the online tutorial was combined with the online learning community treatment, the group performed significantly better than when the online tutorial was the treatment alone. When analyzing the results from the focus groups, the results indicated that the students that participated through the online learning community were more satisfied with the experience, than the participants in the other two groups. Lastly, the researcher made recommendations to enhance the development of specific information skills.

The research reported here focuses on the application of multimedia to the teaching of information skills in academic libraries. Specifically, the research project has involved the development and evaluation of a multimedia system to instruct novice users of online library catalogues. The research has included an investigation of the characteristics and needs of novice library users. The ways in which novices approach using library-based information technologies which may be applied to any instructional programme for teaching novices how to use library-based information technologies. The research project has involved the development of a comprehensive multimedia system based on the theoretical model. The multimedia system was designed using Macromedia Director v.4.04. The production techniques and operation of the multimedia system are described in some detail. The multimedia system was evaluated and tested using formative evaluation strategies. The evaluation involved the prototype system being reviewed by expert librarians, and multimedia producers, as well as novice users of online library catalogues. The information gathered during the evaluation was used to make suggestions about improvements to the design of the prototype. The results of the evaluation are reported and analysed. / Master of Arts (Hons)

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Question: How effective is East Tennessee State University (ETSU) medical library in preparing its residents to be information masters when they get into private practice? Design: The study was designed as an effectiveness study using survey instruments to determine the informationseeking behaviors, information skill levels, information training adequacy, and sufficiency of information services/resources provided for ETSU resident physicians to prepare them as information masters when they get into private practice. Setting: The population is ETSU residents, who were enrolled in a residency program in the spring of 2006 at an academic medical center. Participants: ETSU has nine residency programs. There were 220 medical residents at ETSU. The whole population was surveyed as well as 150 attending physicians who work with residents. Interventions: Two survey instruments were utilized to discover information that will lead to better user satisfaction with ETSU information training and information resources/services, thus measuring quality. One aspect of this is better understanding the clients’ information-seeking behaviors. Main Outcome Measures: Quantitative analysis was performed with the SPSS software program. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Inferential statistics were used to analyze relationships and differences Results: ETSU residents frequently had information needs yet infrequently sought answers. When they sought an answer they were usually successful. They preferred electronic resources and indicated time was their greatest barrier. The majority were PDA users. They believed evidence-based medicine was very important to their practice and indicated that the information received from the library changed their patient care. Most indicated a desire to have a clinical medical librarian for their program. The most frequently used resources were Google and the Web, yet they indicated these had low clinical value.

Yes / Employers are increasingly requiring a range of “soft” skills from chemistry graduates, including the ability to search for and critically evaluate information. This paper discusses the issues around encouraging chemistry students to engage with information skills and suggests curricular changes which may help to “drip-feed” information skills into degree programmes.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of the importance of user education in relation to undergraduates´ bachelor thesis. The secondary purpose of the study was to investigate how institutional impact is reflected in student text production. The starting point of the study is an observation of user education at Södertörn University Library, where students in the process of writing their bachelor thesis in tourism participated. This student group became the focus of the study.         Through a survey, feedback was collected concerning what the students think the user education might have contributed to in relation to their thesis writing. Whether the importance of user education reflected in the papers has been investigated based on a comparative reference analysis that included bachelor theses in tourism science published between 2015 and 2017. The students' questionnaire answered in general in the support of the user education, where an increased focus on searching in databases and after scientific articles was emphasized. The comparative reference analysis also did not dispute what was expressed in the questionnaire survey although the difference was marginal to those who participated and those that did not. Based on Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, it was investigated how institutional impact was reflected in selected papers. By analysing the user education and guidelines, it was possible to see how a certain type of academic discourse was reproduced in the theses. This study describes the importance of library education in several ways. The discourse analysis showed that library education has a role as a genre of governance where academic and disciplinary discourse is reproduced. The survey also showed that library education constitutes a cognitive authority towards the students, which correlated with the reference analysis.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to contribute knowledge on how students in an academic setting conceptualise information literacy, how they interact with information and library provided resources to meet their information needs, as well as to examine how the academic library supports students with their studies as a facilitator and its role in information literacy instruction. Taking a qualitative approach, the study used semi-structured interviews to gather the necessary data. To collect the empirical data, twenty-six students of the University of Cyprus (UCY) who actively use the library of the institution were interviewed. After the interviews, several themes emerged concerning how students conceptualise information literacy, as well as their opinions on the role of the library as a facilitator for their studies. The findings showed that students relate information literacy mainly to information seeking activities and the appropriate use of information. Concerning the use of library resources, students tend to use both printed and electronic material in order to meet their information needs. The findings also revealed that students are satisfied with the library collection as they find it quite sufficient in helping them accomplish their studies. As far as the teaching of information literacy is concerned, most interviewed students believe that a stand-alone credit information literacy course would be more beneficial and efficient for students, rather than an information literacy course embedded in one of their classes. The importance of an active mode and the compulsory nature of these courses against a passive mode and non-mandatory nature has also been stressed by the students.

This study identifies the components of an instructional programme for information literacy that is culturally relevant to Kuwaiti students. It discusses culturally relevant education, instruction for information literacy, the provision of library and information skills instruction in Kuwait, and its characteristics as an independent nation, and as a Gulf, Arab, Islamic, and developing country. The study further tests the effect of cultural relevance on instruction for information literacy for Kuwaiti students with an experiment of comparative instruction. The control group received Western-oriented instruction for information literacy and the experimental group received instruction that substituted Kuwaiti cultural referents for some of the Western-oriented referents. The aims of instruction for both groups were basic levels of proficiency as described in Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning, and the main vehicle of instruction was the Big SixTM information problem solving strategy. The only difference in instruction between groups were the images in the Big SixTM transparencies used for overhead projection, the examples used in class to discuss various information problems and the corresponding images that represented the examples. The study measured the information problem solving achievement of 126 fourth- and eighth grade students with a pre- post-test, the recall of the Big Six strategy with a post-test, and student attitudes with a questionnaire. The analyses revealed that, overall, there is a significant difference in the mean achievement scores in information problem solving and the recall of the Big Six strategy between students who received culturally relevant instruction and those who received instruction that was not culturally relevant. Examined separately, males' scores were significantly higher in the group that received culturally relevant instruction, while females responded equally well to both types of instruction. In addition, the study found a strong correlation between the attitudes of students in the control and experimental groups, and between males and females within groups.