Judith A. Peacock

Teaching skills for teaching librarians: Postcards from the edge of the educational paradigm

ABSTRACTGreater emphasis on core or generic skills is generating sweeping reforms across tertiary curricula, and academics now face the challenge of developing in students complex concepts and skills of which they themselves may possess limited awareness, understanding or ability.This shift in focus demands that the academic must seek out comprehensive, specialised guidance from support areas such as libraries. In response, librarians must be positioned as key educators in the teaching and learning environments of the future. They require new and refined skills and conceptual understandings which will enable them to perform with an educational competence and professional confidence equal to that of their academic peers.The skills required to enable the ‘librarian-teacher’ metamorphosis to occur must be explored in terms of potential development and sustainability. Evolving roles and responsibilities, changing expectations and customised staff development present implications for librarians and library man...

Mixed mode education: implications for library user services

The Faculty of Information Technology at QUT does not formally carry out distance education for any of its courses. However, it has pursued a number of initiatives that have made it possible for students to carry out an increasing proportion of their coursework off‐site. These initiatives include computer‐managed learning, World Wide Web and CD‐ROM delivery of administrative and educational materials, and most recently the development of an integrated learning environment (ILE) for electronic delivery. These developments have been complemented and supported by the QUT library by means of different avenues of access to CD‐ROMs, a regional electronic document delivery service (REDD), and an electronic reserve (E‐Reserve) service. Issues associated with the operation and evaluation of such facilities are described, and the future library role in educational delivery is discussed.

Information literacy co-ordination: two dynamic approaches

The libraries of the University of Melbourne and Queensland University of Technology have two different approaches to co-ordinating information literacy. During 1999, each library reviewed various aspects of their coordination processes, the result of which was the implementation of innovative approaches to managing their education and training programs. Although the libraries service the needs of parent universities with distinct educational agendas, they share a common focus concerning Information Literacy objectives and issues. Each library has an extensive teaching and learning tradition and demonstrates a strong commitment to student learning outcomes. Furthermore, as multi-campus institutions, the development, co-ordination and management of their education and training programs presents similar opportunities and challenges. However, each library has adopted distinctly different operational models. This paper presents an overview of the co-ordination models adopted by each library and analyses their individual rationales, within the context of their organisations, for applying these models. It summarises the redevelopment and implementation processes undertaken, including operational initiatives, managerial strategies, staffing and resourcing issues and evaluation and feedback methodologies, and analyses the success or otherwise of each model. It provides a critique of both approaches in terms of achievements, challenges and issues born as a result of each process. It also seeks to identify future trends and improvements to be undertaken in subsequent reviews.

Library Services to External Students from Australian Universities: The Influence of Flexible Delivery upon Traditional Service Provision

Summary Distance education services provided by a number of Australian university libraries are considered. Attention is paid to agreements between libraries, library staff involvement in program and information skills development, evaluation of services, and the evolution of online delivery. This paper establishes that little provision is made for the specific support of the adult learner in distance education and argues that flexible delivery initiatives are diminishing the distinction between on- and off-campus services, irrespective of client-base.