Esther Grassian

Library instruction work can win honors among a librarian's peers. Esther Grassian's experience is one example. She designed a model program to prepare library instructors to teach faculty, staff, and students at UCLA to use popular resources on the Internet such as the World Wide Web and Gopher. Her efforts earned her recognition as 1995 Librarian of the Year among her peer professional group at UCLA - the Library Association of the University of California, Los Angeles (LAUC-LA).

"Colleagues recognized the ideal supportive learning environment [Grassian] established," said Rita Costello, chair of the LAUC-LA. Grassian's instruction program, Costello said, "helped librarians gain the confidence to become fledgling Internet instructors and then develop the skills to learn sophisticated technologies and teach more classes."

Grassian is currently Reference/Instruction Librarian at UCLA's College Library, the undergraduate library on campus. Aside from being a LIRT member since 1987, she is active in a number of professional areas. For example, she is currently chair of ACRL's Instruction Section and has written articles, book chapters, and conference papers on a wide variety of issues including library instruction and electronic resources.

The Internet instruction program at UCLA began when the library formed an informal Internet Training Group in Spring 1993, and Grassian was appointed chair. "Our job was to learn what we could about the UCLA Biomedical Library's rather comprehensive Internet class and then offer similar Internet classes at the College Library and the University Research Library," Grassian explained.

With her direction set, Grassian developed a basic introduction to the Internet and to the gopher client available through the library's OPAC. Her goals for the program were to help library instructors to feel comfortable with the Internet as well as to offer basic introductory Internet classes to the UCLA community.

The program offered library instructors two rehearsals of introductory Internet classes for end-users. Along with the rehearsal sessions, Grassian developed simple handouts that the instructors could distribute and refer to when teaching users how to make use of the campus gopher, both within and outside the library, and to direct them to other sample gopher sites. In developing these materials, as well as later handouts for Internet resources such as the World Wide Web, she asked other library staff for input.

Grassian also developed a support system for librarians brave enough to try teaching these Internet classes after the initial rehearsal sessions. She arranged for a "back-up" librarian to assist with each classroom presentation, to help answer questions, and to take the presenter's place in teaching the class if an emergency arose. "The Biomedical Library generously shared its Internet class script, and I also provided copies of my script and all handouts, including an end-user evaluation form, and overheads of comic strips and drawings illustrating how the Internet actually works," Grassian said.

Potential instructors for the program could attend "debriefing-support" meetings where those who had already taught Internet classes talked about what went right, what went wrong, and what changes they might make next time.

Grassian adapted the strategies used in the early program that presented information about Gopher to deliver similar information about the World Wide Web when the Web quickly grew to Internet prominence. "In addition to the internal and end-user Internet training program I established, I've been making lots of efforts in many different areas related to information literacy, especially trying to connect diverse groups and individuals who may be working in similar areas or on related projects."

New components are added to the program as needs arise. For example, representatives from the university's Office of Academic Computing now attend the Internet classes to answer technical questions, which has allowed library staff to concentrate on the other issues.

Grassian said she hopes that as information literacy grows in importance, the university can merge its efforts to provide an information literacy curriculum for the campus. Library instruction is more than just teaching the mechanics of information tools, she said. "Another, more important aspect is teaching critical thinking criteria for weighing the relative value of information tools and the items or information you retrieve through them. A third important aspect is teaching conceptual frameworks, such as controlled vocabularies and the flow of information. In my opinion it will always be essential to teach these aspects, somehow, no matter what physical or virtual form the library takes."

Grassian said that future challenges for librarians involved with library instruction will include staying ahead of most users' knowledge of technology and working with faculty to merge information literacy into the academic curriculum.