Information Literacy - User Training Project for the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon - FMUL

Abstract

The FMUL Central Library, has always played a role at the Faculty, as a key element in the support of education-related activities.  Although user training has always been part of library competencies, it is now an emerging area, representing one of the main and most important performance strategies, especially in the current context of Bologna process. The main objective of this project, developed in the context of a Master of Library and Information Sciences, was to restructure the existing training program, by the use of  Web tools promoting distance education.  A brief review of the literature, and a quantitative analysis of the Portuguese situation regarding the training of users in Portuguese health academic libraries has been done. The results show that the integration of this type of training in the academic curriculum is already happening in some cases. However, there are still some barriers to overcome, such as the poor perception of the library and librarians major role, in the faculty environment.

Introduction

The new learning environment promoted by Bologna, presents new challenges that libraries and librarians should look at as potential opportunities to reinforce their role. The autonomy that is required by the new teaching model for students, causes them to approach the library (physical or virtual), looking for updated information, and to develop skills to interpret assignments, conceptualize topics, devise search strategies, and evaluate retrieval content. Academic librarians have the background and knowledge to provide that support, getting in the front line developing of information literacy programs, and slowly incorporating it as an academic discipline in the curricula.

More than accept the challenge,  we believe librarians have to be entrepreneurial in developing user training programs with the increasingly collaborative learning models which know no physical boundaries.

Objectives

The project we propose is quit relevant to  main competency of the reference service which is user support. The reference service had to adjust to a new kind of users, with new kinds of needs, mostly related to quick access to relevant information and updated resources. On this basis, more than providing information access, our user training program will give users the skills they need to manage their learning process. In order to satisfy user’s needs, and to empower their autonomy, the User Training Program, main goal is to restructure and reorganize the existing program, adopting distance learning options. New areas were created on the web site (htpp://www.biblioteca.fm.ul.pt) and on the UL e-learning platform (http://elearning.ul.pt), for better user support. In this context, to support teaching, learning and research needs, the project must:

• Have a procedure manual;
• Have a quality management system;
• Plan, develop or adapt training materials, specific modules and tutorials;
• Set an annual training calendar;
• Develop an Information Literacy module in the e-learning platform of UL (Moodle);
• Develop a new tab in the Library homepage, to promote and support Information Literacy training;
• Develop a marketing strategy to promote this new service / area;
• Reinforce the trainers team and their competences;
• Establish and strengthen partnerships with other units of FMUL, involved on the learning process;
• Develop a Bench Learning platform with other health academic libraries to share training materials.

The project development and implementation should be complete until September 2012. Most of all, it is our ambition that this work becomes a support base to further integration of information literacy training programs in the academic curriculum of FMUL.

Methods

A review of Portuguese and international  literature has been made, including articles published in the last ten years, however, due to its importance, some bibliography published before the defined period, was included too. The intention of the review was to find guidelines, best practices and models which could be adapted to our needs.

In addition to this method of investigation, to reinforce or change our empirical view, a quantitative analysis of the Portuguese situation has been done, running an online survey through the platform Monkey Survey http://pt.surveymonkey.net/, regarding the training of users in Portuguese health academic libraries. More than analyzing the results for each particular library, our goal was to get a general view of Portuguese reality concerning information literacy projects. Ten basic questions were sent in an anonymous questionnaire to 35 Portuguese academic health libraries (66% of which responded).

Results / Conclusions

The results obtained from the questionnaire help us on developing the project, by knowing similar programs implemented in Portugal, and complemented  our knowledge of the state of the art worldwide obtained from our own study of the literature on the subject. In the Portuguese case, the few studies that we found were related to academic libraries in general, and not specifically to health libraries.

Thus, it should be noted that, although our investigation did not explore all possible areas of research and focused only on basic questions, it still reveals the current situation, in which the asymmetry of the different attitudes toward the problem is evident. The “no answers” section, with 34% of the answers, may indicate a lack of conscience that still exists about how important is this area.

On the other hand, 91% of those who answered, state user training programs as very important (Table 1), and for 78% it is a way of enhancing the quality of university education, and to promoting the image of academic libraries and librarians.

About integration of information literacy training programs in the academic curricula, there was only one answer. However, it is known that in some cases (30%) there is collaborative work between librarians and teachers, concerning the curricula planning and development. Thereby, the advantages of this kind of support / partnership are starting to be recognized, reinforcing education quality, and mostly investing in student’s empowerment.

Concerning the adopted teaching models, the most frequent is still the traditional in class model, with 94.7% of responses, but there is also a tendency for the adoption of e-learning (15.8%), although one should not replace the other. The blended learning option, was not checked, but we believe this teaching methodology will be widely implemented, combining classroom teaching and distance learning, overcoming the image of the “lonely learner” associated with e-learning. As reinforcement of the questionnaire, some telephone calls were made to some of the libraries involved, to check the attitude and experience of other librarians regarding the development of projects in this area. There is  clear awareness of the importance of developing user training programs, but in some cases there are still some barriers to overcome, like the poor perception of the value of libraries and librarians in the university environment.

Although much of the literature reviewed, reflects the existence of a pronounced gap between the Portuguese reality and that of other countries, in which we find most of the published works and implemented projects, the situation tends to change. There is now a real effort to integrate information literacy in the academic curricula, and some Portuguese academic libraries (74% of responses) are already developing valuable projects (Figure 1), which is a strong motivation to other libraries to follow this path.