Gómez Hernández, José A. Library Management .

Murcia: DM, 2002

TOPIC 2: USER TRAINING. ORGANIZATION OF TRAINING

PROGRAMS
1. GOALS.
2. BASIC CONTENTS
2.1. Educational function of the library
2.2. Evolution of the concept and content of user training.
2.3. The competencies included in information literacy
2.4. User difficulties in document search
2.4.1. User Education Objectives
2.4.2. Basic principles for successful learning:
2.6. Most common training actions
3. PRACTICAL APPLICATION. DESIGN A USER TRAINING ACTIVITY IN A LIBRARY.
4. QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND EVALUATION
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. GOALS.
The training of users, and what the library has as an educational service, is part of its essence, and
helps to make the rest of the services profitable. User training is becoming more than teaching the
use of the library to become information and digital literacy, that is, training the user to take
advantage of the information. It should be a service of all types of libraries, and its need is greater
due to the lack and insufficiency of school libraries, which limits the development of information
skills within the school system. Current technologies generate new difficulties and possibilities.
User education is necessary because libraries are often difficult places to use, and because the
world of information is complex in itself. Most users have problems accessing and using
information fully and critically, and even many teachers and researchers do not know how to use
libraries as well as they should. In this context, the objective of this topic is to know the
principles and techniques of user training as one of the main services of the library, consisting of
cooperating in the development of skills and learning related to the activities of searching,
selecting, criticizing and rework the information. The student must know the possible ways of
initiating users in working in libraries, in locating the documents they contain, and their
information, assuming an attitude of control over the information.
2. BASIC CONTENTS

2.1. Educational function of the library

Concern for education has been a constant of the library. Furthermore, the library itself and its
use for any purpose has an educational dimension because between learning as information
processing and the documentary process carried out by libraries there is a parallelism that is a
reference and model for users: libraries search, evaluate , select, classify and organize
information for dissemination, and this is what we do when we learn: search for information
based on a need, locate it, evaluate it, select or extract the relevant one, organize it in our system
of prior knowledge, and apply it to our purposes or communicate it. The library as an institution
is a reference for learning, its collections a reflection of science and culture, and the librarian a
model, an example as the teacher of how to select and use information.

In fact, in any use of the library the reader is learning: by reading he expands his knowledge, his
culture, or his ability to understand; By studying in the library you are taking advantage of it for
your formal education activities; By becoming informed you are obtaining the elements to
produce knowledge; By accessing library documents you are obtaining selected sources of

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knowledge; By having fun, accessing culture or using technology for communication or leisure,
you are acquiring digital literacy or getting to know different artistic manifestations; In short, by
using the library together with others you are acquiring democratic and respectful habits,
internalizing the practices of cooperation in learning or expanding your vision of the world of
information in its different media.
This educational function is present in all types of libraries. It is evident in school or university
education, but in public education it is also essential. For example, the IFLA/UNESCO Manifesto
of 1994 states that it is a center for lifelong learning, support of education and literacy, and an
instrument to facilitate progress in the use of information and its management through computer
media. The recent Guidelines for public libraries (IFLA, 2001) consider education and instruction
as the first of its purposes, relating it to lifelong learning. In addition, they attribute support
missions to school libraries and a compensatory function for inequalities in access to information
and knowledge. Among many other mentions, we have:
^ 1.3.1: Education and instruction (...) The public library should provide materials in appropriate
media to collaborate in school and extracurricular learning processes. It should also help the
user to use these learning sources effectively and provide facilities for the user to study. The
ability to access information and make effective use of it is vital for successful instruction,
and where possible, public libraries should cooperate with other educational organizations in
teaching how to use the resources necessary to manage information. The public library must
also actively support literacy campaigns (...). Newly literate people need easy access to
appropriate reading materials to maintain and increase their literacy.
^ 3.4.5. Education and Training throughout life. The public library supports lifelong education
and training, collaborating with schools and other educational institutions to help students of
all ages... In the same way, it must act by supporting literacy campaigns and basic
acquisitions for daily life... The spread of distance learning is influencing public libraries.
Homeschoolers are likely to turn to their local library as their first source of documentation.
Many will need to resort to the Internet, a service that the library must offer them. Public
libraries play an increasingly important role in the educational network and must provide
space and access to the instruments necessary to satisfy this demand.
^ 3.4.11. Promotion of reading and literacy. The public library must support activities through
which people can make the best possible use of Technologies. It should help other
institutions that combat illiteracy and promote practical knowledge of the media. This can be
achieved through the promotion of reading, the provision of appropriate materials to those
who are poorly literate, collaboration with other community organizations fighting against
illiteracy, ...the promotion of computing and training in this field, ...cooperation with
teachers, parents and other contact persons who help new citizens to acquire the basic
educational notions that will allow them to function in the new context.
^ 3.6. User education. The library must help its users acquire the necessary skills to make the
best possible use of its resources and services. Staff members must act as information
navigators and help them, whatever their age, to make the best use of ICT. Likewise, they
must be prepared to train them. As ICT becomes more affordable, the role of the public
library in facilitating access to these media and helping people to make the best use of them
is vitally important.

2.2. Evolution of the concept and content of user training.

Traditionally, user training has been understood as the library service that consisted of making
known the use of the library and its documentary search resources. It has almost always been a
bibliographic instruction, which aimed to achieve optimal use of the library. This involves
teaching them to save time when using services, making the library familiar, knowing how to use
the different library systems, reference works, knowing the ways of bibliographical citation... It
must also result in changing the attitude towards the library, showing that it is a pleasant and

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welcoming place, and suitable for meeting their needs.

For libraries, in addition to these educational services being a part of their mission, they are a
strategic opportunity for development, since:
^ They are a way to improve the use and performance of documentary collections and the
rest of the services
^ They increase the autonomy of users.
^ They increase the added value of library services at a time of disintermediation, which
would force the expansion of professional functions
^ They help improve the image of libraries, by being focused on users and their information
needs
^ They help relate the library with technology and information, in an integrative way with
the vision of the library as a place of printed culture
^ They are a way to equip yourself with technology, if we manage to locate computers for
public use, telecenters, in the library or its surroundings...

One reason for the need for user training was the complex organization of documentary
information in our libraries, which have had difficult classification systems, poorly signposted
and conceptually and graphically facilitated. In this sense, the progressively greater provision of
libraries to facilitate use has simplified access, and their design has made the consultation and use
of both the facilities and the collection and bibliographic search products more transparent. This
simplification has been reorienting the contents of user training: The best signage, the
friendliness of the consultation interfaces or direct access to the collections guides and facilitates
use, and this makes some of the traditional contents of the user training, and opening the way to
others more related to the process of converting information into knowledge.

But the fact that we remove unnecessary complexities from access and consultation procedures
does not imply that people know how to use and take advantage of information better for their
own knowledge and action. Information in general is becoming more complex every day, due to
factors such as the growth in the volume of documentation in multiple media and access routes,
rapid change and the technological mediatization of knowledge. And this leads to the growing
need for information skills, which make people capable of lifelong learning and adapting to
change. Synthesized by Bernhard (2002), the main reasons invoked to justify the implementation
of training actions in this direction are the following:
^ The exponential growth of information available and accessible in any format;
^ An increasingly heterogeneous information whose authenticity, validity and credibility must
be continually established;
^ An economy strongly based on service activities and appealing to rapidly developing
technologies;
^ The need for each person to acquire and develop transferable and usable skills throughout
life, as well as to learn to learn from a problem-solving perspective;
^ The need to stay up to date with the most recent developments for research activities;
^ The demand from employers who want to hire people capable of mastering technologies,
searching for information in electronic sources and the Internet, and evaluating it, managing
internal and external information as well as carrying out alert activities;
^ The evolution towards an active pedagogy centered on the student, based on resources and
problem solving;
^ The impact of training in the use of information on continuity in studies and school success.

What individuals need is not only to know how to use libraries, but to master the skills and
strategies to inform themselves and use information, which implies knowing the sources and
knowing how to intelligently apply the procedures to obtain information from them. Regarding

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traditional user training, we are not only concerned with documentary information accessible in
or from libraries, and we are involved not only in teaching the skills of searching and locating,
but also those of understanding, using and communicating information and achieving knowledge.
. Helping users acquire these skills is not the exclusive task of librarians, but they do have a
fundamental role in it: demonstrating this is an objective of this article.

2.3. The competencies included in information literacy

User training, therefore, is aimed at becoming information literacy. This expression comes from
the use of the term literacy, which in English has, in addition to the basic meaning of “the ability
to read and write,” that of “mastery of a series of competencies and skills.” That is why it has
naturally come to accompany terms such as media, digital, information or technological to refer
to these new “literacies” necessary in the information society. If reading and writing literacy was
the condition of possibility for printed culture, the new literacies related to the use of information
are the condition for the new network society in which we find ourselves. Its final objective, its
purpose and its importance is to make individuals lifelong learners, people capable of finding,
evaluating and using information from any source effectively to solve problems or make
decisions.

Regarding the different skills covered by this concept, they generally cover skills to find
information (document location and retrieval skills, and technological equipment management
skills); to use information (thinking skills, study and research skills; production and presentation
skills), and to share and act ethically with respect to information. All of this regardless of the
media (traditional or electronic), the types of information (graphic, multimedia, textual) and the
modes of organization of its contents (sequential, hypertextual...). According to Bernhard (2002),
it includes these competencies: ^ Identification of the need for information
^ Creation and organization of information
^ Information search strategies
^ Technological and computer skills
^ Evaluation and processing of information
^ Use and communication of information
^ Ethical and social aspects
^ Active attitude toward lifelong learning
^ Media criticism
^ Self-assessment

User education turns the librarian into a teacher. This implies that you must worry about teaching
in a way that is pedagogically appropriate to what you want to transmit. And strive for your
message to be understood. User training is not a librarian's display of his capacity, but rather an
effort to bring his tools and products appropriately closer to the interests of users. It means giving
priority to the service over the technical, assuming that we must adapt our schemes to the users,
and not pretending that it is the other way around. That more than teaching our own tools, we
should make instruments that are easy to use. Another assumption of training is that we must
stimulate, not overwhelm or discourage; You cannot teach everything at once, nor try to impress,
but rather interest the "students" with a positive attitude towards them. Finally, we must also
assume that with training the library acquires a commitment that it must face, since then it cannot
disappoint the expectations it creates. If done well, the library profession will improve, its status
will improve, library services will be more appreciated, and librarians will be better known and
understood by users.

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2.4. User difficulties in document search

User difficulties in document search (Baró and Mañà)

Stages Difficulties
1. Search
- They present the topics without delimiting
objective
- They present excessively precise demands
- They are not aware of the work that the documentary search entails
- They do not start from their previous knowledge
- They do not propose the search based on the type of work
2. Search for - They do not orient themselves in the library space
documents - They do not know the search tools: catalogs and classifications
ments - They have difficulty using alphabetical order as a search system
- They systematically search the shelves
- It does not take into account the existence of complementary sources of information to the
book
- They wait for the librarian to solve the query
- They hope to find a title that exactly answers their query.
3. Qualification - They do not use the instruments that facilitate the consultation of documents: summaries and
of information indexes - They do not understand the different forms of presentation of information: images,
-- 1. ' diagrams, texts, typography
in the - They do not know how to read documentary texts: they read from beginning to end, they do
documents not select
ments im
prisoners
4. Obtaining - They accumulate documents without any selective method
information - They do not consider it necessary to consult different sources
mation - They do not distinguish the information levels of the various sources
5. Rework - They copy entire messages from books and encyclopedias
information - They do not prepare personal syntheses from the different sources
ration - They have difficulty reformulating content in clear and personal language
- They do not take into account the characteristics of the given presentation system
- They do not consider it necessary to cite the sources of information
- Communication circuits are not considered: they do not detect if their messages have
legibility or reception problems.

2.5. The process of organizing user training activities

The methodology for the design and organization of user education involves taking the following
steps, which we explain following Svinicki and Schwartz:
^ Identify the objectives : The objectives that we can set can be cognitive, when we want to
transmit informational or intellectual skills; affective, when we rather want to produce
positive attitudes towards the library and what it implies, and psychomotor, when we teach
operational skills. These, in turn, have a degree of complexity that allows them to be
structured into basic, intermediate, or advanced. The objectives we set will depend on the
capabilities of the library, the existence or implementation of certain services of interest, or
the level of prior training of the recipients of the training.
^ Know the 'students': The aim will be to know the level of prior knowledge of the users, their
skills, etc., to adapt the training content to them.
^ Analyze the circumstances : The means and time available, the number of students, the
availability of material and audiovisual resources, whether it will be in the library itself or a
classroom, etc.
^ Analyze the role of the instructor: The conditions of the librarian who will provide the training:
his motivation, his teaching skills, his organizational capacity. You should try to speak
clearly and pleasantly, not use library jargon, and avoid being boring or shy. You must

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project confidence, competence, enthusiasm regarding the library, and establish a cordial
relationship. Create bonds of friendship and sympathy, without neglecting discipline if
necessary.
^ Choose teaching options. We must choose the teaching method: whether we will work in a
group or individually. If we will use a direct style (through lectures, theoretical classes,
demonstrations, films, guides, which is more economical in time and personnel, but less
active and personalized); semi-direct (case study, demonstration with student performance,
computer-assisted instruction, programmed instruction) or indirect: brainstorming, research,
discussion.
^ Organize instruction. Having already decided on the method, the instructor and the duration,
we must specify the details to avoid errors, lack of time, plan the search examples so that the
book is in its place, the file is well interspersed, etc. We must classify the information to be
transmitted, identify the contents on which we want attention to fall, making it stand out. The
verbal or graphic aids that we will use, etc.

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2.5.1. User Education Objectives

If we focus the objectives from the point of view of the users' difficulties in the different stages of
the information search, and following the Baró and Mañà scheme, we would have:

User training objectives

Goals Tasks involved
1. Know how to - Break down the search topic into the different facets (brainstorming)
define the objective - Establish hierarchies and subordination relationships between different concepts
of the search - Correctly determine search terms
- Know the stages of intellectual work
- Know the characteristics of the different information restitution systems
- Temporize the task

2. Know how to - Know the services offered by the library and know how to use them correctly - Know
locate information in the location of each type of document in the library space - Know the function of each of
a document center the catalogs
mental - Know how to decode records and catalog files
- Know how to locate documents based on the indications in the catalogs
- Get to know other documentary centers
3. Locate the
information in the
- Recognize the different peripheral information instruments in printed matter: covers,
documents annexes, bibliographies, glossaries, chronologies, activities
- Correctly use information retrieval instruments in printed documents: summaries and
indexes
- Correctly use search tools in non-printed sources of information.
- Know the systems of presentation and graphic organization of information: graphs,
footnotes, boxes, diagrams
4. Know and use the - Evaluate the suitability of the document in relation to the research topic
different types of - Identify and evaluate the various sources of information based on the different
information information levels: encyclopedias, dictionaries, manuals, information dossiers,
monographs, online databases, optical media, magnetic media, videotext. - Contrast the
information obtained from various sources and develop a critical sense of the
information
5. Know how to
reprocess information - Know how to take notes and classify them
- Write analytical sheets
- Correctly cite information sources
- Prepare summaries, diagrams, graphs

2.5.2. Basic principles for successful learning:

^ That we achieve motivation (that we arouse the need to know and the interest in knowing,
curiosity or convenience or interest in the practical application of what is going to be
learned).
^ That there is a good organization of the contents to be learned.
^ That we achieve the active participation of the students, because it is the best way to learn: we
must stimulate, encourage them to ask, let the user reflect and work. Give other possibilities,
let them pose challenges.
^ Get feedback. That is, being able to inform and evaluate the effectiveness of the process,
monitoring the improvement of attitudes and work methods of users in the library. To do this,
the evaluation method must be valid and reliable in its results, but at the same time easy to
apply and develop. Formal methods can be applied (Tests, essays, worksheets, diaries,
performance tests), or informal methods (self-reports, observation, conversations).

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2.6. Most common training actions

The most basic training in library knowledge will take the form of guided tours, which must be
supported by simple and attractive user guides that explain the collections, services, rules and
spaces. The library guide will be at the library counters, in the information services, in the
secretariats, in nearby clubs and associations. Video presentations can also be made. And it is
important that knowledge of the library is reinforced with good signage of the services.
At a more complex level are bibliographic instruction courses, knowledge of information sources,
use of catalogues, reference works, repertoires, magazines, abstracts, summary bulletins, guides
to institutional and personal sources, etc. It is essential that the groups be small, no more than 15
students, that they do simple exercises and learn by doing. Differentiated courses can also be
taken on periodical publications, their structure, union catalogues, the use of abbreviations and
indexes, searches for articles in databases, etc.

The generalization of online public access catalogs and CD-ROM databases, which each user
uses autonomously in their searches, has made skill in the management of these media a primary
objective of user training. We must ensure that its use is very interactive and friendly, making
searches and procedures easy, and, at the same time, that through training the conceptual aspects
are known, to avoid impoverishing the results of its use, due to noise or losses. of information.
This gives rise to user guides and manuals or web tutorials or lists of frequently asked questions.
We can also introduce new teaching methods: with friends, trial-error, work sessions.

Some notable examples, in the field of public libraries, would be:

^ The Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation library carries out intense user training, and also
acts on learning mediators, such as parents and teachers. In addition, through its program
“Information and communication technologies through the lands of Peñaranda” (
http://www.fundaciongsr.es/penaranda/pitic/general.htm ), it has brought technological
literacy to the entire rural region. which has this library as a reference, with training programs
for all types of groups, including, for example, the elderly:
Inform IX. User Training Program of the Peñaranda de Bracamonte Public Library (Salamanca)
http://www.fundaciongsr.es/documentos/default3.htm#fdu .
1. Children public:
@ courses to introduce children to the use of the Internet and the CD.
Biblio Hospital to raise awareness among children about the correct use of the collection.
Inform red, green and yellow for students in first, third and sixth grades of Primary Education.
2. Youth audience:
Meetings with the Library for Secondary Education students. Project
The Digital Library project for students of the Second Cycle of Secondary Education and Baccalaureate: 3. Adult public:
Chronicles of my town project for students of Social Guarantee, Employment Workshop, Adult Education... l@biblioteca.tú project
for students of the Employment Workshop.
4. Teachers' collective:
Teacher's Week . Guided tours for new teachers.
Informative and educational resources in your Library for the Employment Workshop monitors 5. Programs with parents
Read before six , information and guidance program for parents with children under six years of age.
Guide Telling with stories

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Guide The Library, a shared space

Your child's Library , information and guidance program for parents
Information brochure
Internet in your child's Library.
Guide How to talk about sex with our children?

^ The Regional Library of Murcia organizes Intelligent Use of the Internet programs that are
taught in its computer room for general users or for specific groups that request it, among
which are specific sectors such as the elderly, or disadvantaged people such as prisoners or
the disabled. . In addition, its web project includes numerous online guides or tutorials with
documentary training.
aad*e * DusEsán e]tpukmmcanueifanmu'efoarusckonigaka?
Easy guide to the library guide
for you user

find 1 1 space? services - pioducts

gui= íúrl de Ha Lilf okctm rugiunal ds miu ck

In the field of the university library, the need to cooperate with teachers for the introduction of
these contents into the subjects, which make students skilled at learning and researching, is
highly highlighted. Electronic skills are spreading, since universities have many direct access
computer rooms, young people who enter university enter with extensive contact with ICT,
everyone has an email address, teachers are integrating ICT into their teaching activity forcing
students to master office tools and network access skills... However, mastering technology does
not imply the ability to evaluate and apply information beyond copying strategies. Teachers must
promote the use of libraries, avoiding conventional teaching methods that do not lead to the need
for the search and use of scientific information. It may involve participation in subjects,
cooperating in internships, support in final degree projects or bachelor's and master's theses.
Motivation for learning tasks is easier when access and use of information is carried out not in
the abstract or in general, but with an objective and a theme that is part of the content in which
the student is training. Jointly, the teacher and the librarian encourage and teach the use of
scientific documentation, reviewing the student's process of learning to inform themselves, the
intellectual process of deciding, delimiting, outlining and reorienting information needs,
accompanying them in exploratory searches and analysis of reviews , and even giving guidelines
for the critical evaluation of information. Some examples of user training in universities would
be:
^ Guided tours, introductory and in-depth courses. They are present in many university libraries,
and an example could be those of the Autonomous University of Barcelona: Conèixer les
Biblioteques ( http://www.bib.uab.es/formacio/curs.htm ), or the one that seems most complete to
us, that of the Library of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, which includes, under the
program "How to find and manage scientific-technical information", general, thematic or

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specialized training sessions, and others linked to UPC studies, with guidelines for the
completion of the final degree projects ( http://bibliotecnica.upc.es/sesfor/ ).
^ Free configuration courses of specialized documentation, such as those of the University of
Barcelona, http://www.bib.ub.es/bub/formacio.htm ).
^ Some libraries use academic papers and final year projects as an opportunity for user training.
The experiences of support from the libraries for these works range from the provision of
materials and guidance in the documentary searches that they imply, to the teaching of the
use of databases in an individualized way to practically teach them to know and use the
resources of interest.
^ Another way is self-training, through the libraries' web portals:
o The development of digital libraries with teaching resources to support the subjects,
such as notes or recommended bibliography, implies that students know how to
access and use these resources. They represent the idea of bringing the library to the
classroom, of strengthening the link between teaching and information resources.
o Specifically, through electronic guides to libraries, their databases and catalogues, and
hypertext tutorials in electronic format. Training in the telematic environment is
playing an increasingly important role, with explanations of documentary resources
and search strategies, answers to the questions most frequently asked by students
(FAQs), structured directories of resources, exercises and self-assessment tests. v. the
user guide of the Carlos III library in Madrid, or the Access sheets of the Polytechnic
University of Catalonia ( http://bibliotecnica.upc.es/FullsAcces/inici.asp ).
International examples of hypertext tutorial design would be those of Into Info , Tonic
(University of Newcastle, 1998) or TILT of the University of Texas.

ACTIVITIES OF THE LIBRARIES OF QUEBEC (BERNHARD, 2002)

Free activities or activities integrated into a course with free exercises
H.HWorkshops offered in almost all libraries on a regular basis or on demand;
H.HThe training program of the University of Quebec in Montreal (regular schedule of four types of
workshops).
Activities integrated into a subject with exercises and compulsory work
ß Mandatory training in ATRIUM (computerized catalog of the University of Montreal) integrated into
back-to-course activities (Library of Library and Information Sciences);
ß The workshops of the libraries of the University of Quebec in Montreal mentioned above, when their

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integration into the subject is requested by a teacher and gives rise to an evaluation (examples:
Management and Education);
ß The activities integrated into the following subjects: MEC 1100 – Polytechnic School (Proulx 1999), SOI
1003 (Nursing Sciences – Univers. of Montreal), twelve subjects in Medicine (InfoRepère project).
Subjects without documentary training credits
ß Four modules in the process of development at Laval University (1999-).
< http://www.bibl.ulaval.ca/info/formadoc/ >
Subjects with credits in academic disciplines
ß Laboratory for introduction to professional information (University of Quebec in Chicoutimi);
ß COM 1100 Research Methodology (University of Montreal)
ß EDP 1900 Method of intellectual work (University of Montreal)
ß PHI 15252 Research and Writing in Philosophy (Université Laval)
Self-training activities (not accredited)
ß The Library Research Guide CD-ROM tutorial (Concordia University – tested in 1999-2000);
ß The sending of information “capsules” in 1st year of Medicine – InfoRepère project created by the Health
Library, University of Montreal (Tardiff 1999);
ß The progressive work of translation and adaptation into French of the Into Info modules
PERFORMANCES
^ The creation in 1991 of the Working Group on Document Formation within the Libraries Subcommittee of
the CREP UQ (Conference of Rectors and Presidents of Universities of Québec), one of whose mandates
is to “seek the officialization of the importance of “documentary training in university training”
^ The existence in most libraries of a documentary training coordinator position;
^ The existence of documentary training rooms on the premises of all libraries
^ The creation, in 1995, at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi, of a basic subject of a
training credit in the use of information, which must be progressively integrated into first cycle programs
^ The mandate entrusted by the Board of Directors of Laval University to the Vice-Rector for Studies to
ensure that the programs gradually integrate initiation activities into documentary research and the
ongoing development of a training activity for these purposes
^ The existence, for years, at the Universities of Montreal and Laval among others, of documentary training
subjects in relation to an academic discipline and pre-required courses in continuing training;
^ The participation of a librarian in the computer subcommittee of the undergraduate curriculum committee
of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal in 1998;
^ The participation of librarians from the Polytechnic School in the development of documentary training
integrated into a first-year high school subject (1998-1999);
^ Holding annual documentary training workshops (Workshop in Library Use) in Quebec, a meeting of key
people in documentary training from North America and other parts of the world.

3. PRACTICAL APPLICATION. DESIGN A USER TRAINING ACTIVITY IN A

LIBRARY.
OBJECTIVE: Have students practice designing training activities, know how to select the
activities, and consider what they would need to carry them out.
2. PROCESS: Select a library, study its use and services, and:
a) Identify the objectives of user training, based on age and studies, previous training...
b) Select the activities to be carried out to achieve the set objectives, taking into account the
economic possibilities, the circumstances and interests of the users, the possibilities of the
accessible library, etc.
c) Make an outline of the tasks necessary to organize each activity: responsible, cost,
celebration calendar, dissemination, etc.
d) Write the project.
4 . QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND EVALUATION
Why is user training important? What role should the librarian adopt in training? What specific
training objectives occur in a public library? And in a scientific library? How is the training
process planned and carried out? What are the main difficulties of users in searching for
information, in the different stages of the study and research process?

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Gómez Hernández, José A. Library Management . Murcia: DM, 2002

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