| dc.description.abstract | This book is aimed at any library staff involved in
or with an interest in end-user education. It
appears at a time when there is a heavy emphasis
on the librarian's role as teacher, and works hard to
reinforce the point, drawing in key topics such as
evidence-based practice and information literacy.
The text comprises 18 case studies of user education
programmes in various US medical libraries.
These programmes largely target students (medical,
physiotherapy, veterinary, etc.), but other user groups
are included in the book.
Each chapter is laid out in a consistent, structured
format so for any case study it is possible to
quickly identify the organization type and background,
detail of the education programme and
any evaluative assessments and conclusions.
There are plenty of ideas to be found in this
book. The programmes detail a wide range of
educational approaches, from tutor-led and selfdirected
learning to on-the-job training and offsite
learning. The teaching methods are also
richly varied, from traditional classroom demonstration
and accompanying computer-based
exercises to the setting of involved problembased
activities. In each case, it is possible to see
how the libraries involved have tailored their
programmes according to best practice and,
perhaps more importantly, what works well in their
environment.
There is no shortage of forward thinking. As a
single example: one institution trains students
specifically in free, openly available resources with
the explicit intention of preparing them for the
more limited access opportunities available in
the real world. This cannot fail to make one think
about the resource leap that students entering
the NHS or UK private health-care sector have
to make.
There are some genuinely thoughtful approaches
taken to user education in these case studies.
Refreshingly, other related and important issues
appear from time to time, such as poor attendance
at training sessions and steps taken that
can be taken by an organization to address this
problem.
Possibly the best bits of the book, however, are
the various appendices to the case studies. These
include programme outlines, test questionnaires,
evaluation forms and results, and a genuinely
useful source of material for any library
trainer.
The book does have weaknesses. For the UK
reader especially, the US and medical emphases
mean that some ideas simply don't translate, and
a certain amount of work would be required to
implement other ideas successfully. Also, many of
the organizations in the case studies are educational
institutions: only one out of the 18 case studies is
of a hospital library programme.
In places, there is an almost overwhelming
amount of detail that can make reading a bit of a
challenge, although this is offset to a degree by the
structured format, which allows the reader to skip
through to more interesting sections.
On occasion, some of the case studies seem to
lack a little by way of reflection. A great deal of
work has obviously been put into development of
education programmes and their evaluation, but
there doesn't always seem to be a clear link between
the teaching and evaluation and the resulting
conclusions. On these occasions, this can lead to the
odd sense that the programmes are more teachercentric
than learner-focused.
Overall, if you are coming to user education
afresh, it might be worth considering other texts
on the subject before using this one. If you have a
more seasoned involvement, however, this book
will offer food for thought and at least a few new
ideas to help supplement and improve your
existing programmes. | en_US |
