CHECK THESE OUT

It's spring! What better time to learn something new?

Many of us find ourselves involved in new exercises in developing our users' information skills--creating a library World Wide Web home page, teaching the Internet, working with a new generation of catalogs and databases with graphical user interfaces or help we can customize. Here are two articles to help you chart a new direction:

Arp, Lori, John Culshaw, and William Garrison. "Teaching Behind the Screens." RQ 35 (Winter 1995): 179-186.

The Internet and possibilities for customizing online catalogs and local resources have made knowledge of screen design important to librarians who provide user instruction. The authors offer practical advice on OPAC screen design, gateways, LAN menus, design of World Wide Web pages, and screens for library instruction laboratory classrooms. An excellent list of references is appended.

Mondowney, JoAnn G. "Licensed to Learn: Driver's Training for the Internet." School Library Journal 42 (January 1996): 32-34.

Describes the Internet Skills project at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library to introduce at-risk children (ages 9-14) to electronic information. Volunteer tutors guide children through a workbook to learn about e-mail, online library resources, FTP, Telnet and the World Wide Web. The author discusses recruitment and training of tutors, equipment used, and marketing. A list of Internet sites and addresses used in the program is included.

Two recently published books also deserve to be added to your spring reading list:

Academic librarians in particular will want to dip into The Upside of Downsizing: Using Library Instruction to Cope (New York: Neal-Schuman, 1995). Edited by Cheryl LaGuardia, Stella Bentley, and Janet Martorana, the volume contains papers from a 1994 conference at the University of Santa Barbara. Carla Stoffle discusses new educational roles for academic libraries. Janice Simmons-Welburn ponders post-bibliographic instruction. Essays covering such varied topics as collaborative learning, peer information counselors, technostress, instructor staff development, and the Internet round out the volume.

Pitkin, Gary M., ed. The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Reference Service and Bibliographic Instruction. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.

An overview of new technologies, their impact on libraries, and implications for library education. Of special interest to LIRT readers are the chapter by Harvey Sager, "Implications for Bibliographic Instruction, " and the essay by John C. Tyson, "The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Library Clientele."