Outside of my other formal library courses, I can't remember a basics of "how to use the library" since high school. This might have been part of basic freshman orientation, but since I was a half time senior high student and half time in college my senior year (in 1989-1990, when that was not a commonplace practice) I wound up bypassing a lot of the traditional freshman stuff. A lot of what I knew before starting the courses here was actually self taught by trial and error. I have definitely learned extra tips and tricks by taking the classes that I have done here.
The library classes have relied on a lot of online guides so I guess that's the only real, at least relatively recent, experience I can compare to. If written well, these can be a great help. Interactive simulations can help too but they are difficult to program and realistically a library wouldn't do that on its own. An audio only walkthrough (such as podcast) or a video tutorial that users can watch would be realistic for a local library to do and could be useful. I know that the IT department at the community college where my Dad works in Washington State did this for basic IT things. He made a video on simple ways to diagnose basic printer errors before calling the department, and other people in IT did different ones. Similar things could be done for library.
My belief is that libraries are just part of the great innudation of information available. A good library resource instruction class cannot help but discuss search engines, Wikipedia, etc if for no other reason than to show why library sources are superior. However, as we've said before, search engines and metacrawlers can have some validity if people are taught to "search smart" - and that's where library technicans and librarians can come in.
I imagine many public libraries have seen more traffic from the unemployed so I will explore that. Types of instruction a library could do is on resources for resume writing, smart job searching (especially since many companies only take online applications that could be done at library computers), training for using resources for career planning whether fresh out of school or changing fields, and similar offerings.
There are topics that do not appear to be library related (but are information related) that Librarians can provide instruction on such as career resources training, as you mentioned. Many libraries provide computer classes and likewise, providing instruction on something that would be helpful to the community such as pathfinders to career information is an extension of making information accessible.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like anything that might ultimately be needed to access library resources (whether it be how to use books/software/materials) or how to use the hardware to access those materials (computer classes as you mention) are fair game for libraries!
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