Session Number
P413
Keywords
information skills, information literacy program, academic library
Description
This paper will introduce our strategy to reach out to user groups other than students, the motivation behind, marketing, feedback and findings so far and our next steps.
Usually, information literacy programs focus primarily on students and their information needs. A survey among academic staff however showed knowledge gaps regarding important information resources and a fundamental need for research activities to be supported by information expertise. We also found that administrative staff of academic as well as non-academic departments have information needs of varied kinds. Since Bavaria’s curriculum for secondary education recognizes information skills as one of the key skills in society there is a growing need for training students and teachers alike. Arising from TUM’s strong link to its Alumni, these form another important target group of the library.
At TUM library we realised a strong need to support these groups regarding their specific information requirements more systematically. As a consequence it has become an integral part of the library’s mission to respond individually to their different requirements.
We offer tours, workshops and lectures which are tailored to specific needs and have been developed in close collaboration with our customers. Content and teaching methods differ accordingly from a treasure hunt for 6th form students to a workshop on academic networking and bibliometrics for researchers.
Some of the services are offered and communicated in collaboration with other support facilities at the university or embedded in the faculty curriculum, others started as ad hoc sessions.
The TUM initiative to address academic and non-academic staff as well as alumni in a more systematic way is part of the library’s program to change the library into the University Centre for Knowledge Management, part of which will be developed in the framework of the current IATUL Task Force action plan. This will be reported on elsewhere during this conference.
P413 Presentation
Information Skills: Targeting Untapped User Groups
This paper will introduce our strategy to reach out to user groups other than students, the motivation behind, marketing, feedback and findings so far and our next steps.
Usually, information literacy programs focus primarily on students and their information needs. A survey among academic staff however showed knowledge gaps regarding important information resources and a fundamental need for research activities to be supported by information expertise. We also found that administrative staff of academic as well as non-academic departments have information needs of varied kinds. Since Bavaria’s curriculum for secondary education recognizes information skills as one of the key skills in society there is a growing need for training students and teachers alike. Arising from TUM’s strong link to its Alumni, these form another important target group of the library.
At TUM library we realised a strong need to support these groups regarding their specific information requirements more systematically. As a consequence it has become an integral part of the library’s mission to respond individually to their different requirements.
We offer tours, workshops and lectures which are tailored to specific needs and have been developed in close collaboration with our customers. Content and teaching methods differ accordingly from a treasure hunt for 6th form students to a workshop on academic networking and bibliometrics for researchers.
Some of the services are offered and communicated in collaboration with other support facilities at the university or embedded in the faculty curriculum, others started as ad hoc sessions.
The TUM initiative to address academic and non-academic staff as well as alumni in a more systematic way is part of the library’s program to change the library into the University Centre for Knowledge Management, part of which will be developed in the framework of the current IATUL Task Force action plan. This will be reported on elsewhere during this conference.