Instruction in the Public Library

On the Web for Ready Reference

by Michelle Y. Roubal, mroubal@chipublib.org

One day back in 1997, my colleague Nanette Alleman, returning from a meeting of the library's Internet Committee, walked into the office and casually asked me if I would be interested in teaching a course about our department's web pages.  The group had decided to begin offering courses based on the various sections of the Chicago Public Library's Web site.  I had been working with Nanette on evaluating content and updating links for the General Information Services section of the site, so I was hardly surprised at her asking me to participate.  Not knowing any better, I agreed and told her to get back to me with the details. 

What began as a one-time instruction piece has morphed into a variety of different workshops and lectures, culminating with a presentation this past fall at the Illinois Library Association's Annual Conference.  This class has taken on a life of its own, plus a whole lot of my time!  What follows is a look into the ways we have successfully formatted, manipulated, and otherwise tweaked a class we call "On the Web for Ready Reference." 

In 1997, the Chicago Public Library  (CPL) began to roll out system-wide Internet access.  Since our library is comprised of over seventy branches, two regional libraries and the central library, this was a massive undertaking.  Simultaneously, our Internet Committee was working on developing the library's home page.  In addition, our Staff Development Department had been offering Internet classes in preparation of this event for a number of years.  Initially these classes focused on topics such as learning the mechanics of browser software and exploring search engines.  As the library Web site developed into a reference tool, librarians who were adding content to the site were chosen to teach others how to use the site for reference purposes. 

The first step in the process began with a meeting of members from the Internet Committee and Staff Development, course trainers and developers, and a representative from the Chicago Library System (CLS).  Due to an agreement between CPL and CLS, the courses were to be offered not only to CPL librarians, but also to CLS member librarians.  This meant that the courses had to be designed with an eye to the needs of academic and special librarians, in addition to our own public librarians.

We left this meeting with an idea of the type of course the group was looking for and a new team member, Jamie Eimermann.  Jamie is an Internet-savvy reference librarian working at our Conrad G. Sulzer Regional Library.  Nanette and I were happy to have a third person to share the course development and training responsibilities.

Our training goal was to introduce librarians to using the CPL Web site for ready reference questions.  Since we wanted librarians to become comfortable with using the site for reference work, it was imperative that the course be taught directly from the General Information Services (GIS) portion of the CPL Web site (see below for URLs).  The class was a three-hour, hands-on experience taught in the Staff Development computer lab with the class size limited to ten people.  We used a minimum of handouts, emphasizing instead the web site itself. 

The General Information Services Division is composed of a number of departments, including the Information Center where Nanette and I work as reference librarians.  The Information Center concentrates on performing quick, five-minute telephone reference service.  We work in a mini-reference library tucked away from the public.  We have designed our web site to complement and reflect the types of print resources we frequently use and the types of questions we frequently encounter.  Before we could begin to teach off of our web site, we had to perform a major overhaul of the site to get it reorganized in a manner in which we could use it for teaching purposes.

We organized the section into four distinct parts: General Information Services, Ready Reference Shelf, Newspapers and Periodicals, and Hot Topics.   The General Information Services section contains original content produced by GIS librarians.  The other three sections are composed of annotated links to useful sites.  We then set about updating links and adding any additional content that we wished to discuss in the class.  The four sections would also determine the structure of our course.  Jamie worked on getting the Newspapers and Periodicals section in order and then taught that material.  Nanette and I worked on updating the remaining sections, which I then taught.  Nanette would function as our "driver, "  the person who actually operated the computer while we lectured. 

This "troika" approach to team teaching has proven very effective for our purposes.  While one person is lecturing, the other trainer walks through the lab making sure everyone is keeping up and correcting any computer glitches.  With two trainers alternating sections, no one trainer has to speak for more than an hour.  By having a third person actually manipulating the computer (typing, clicking, scrolling, etc.), the lecturer is free to stand and face the students, using a laser pointer to highlight items of interest on the screen.  We use a projection device attached to the instructor's computer to project the computer monitor image onto a screen.  This allows students to easily follow the instruction.  Those students not as skilled or practiced in using the browser software can still keep up with the instruction by viewing the screen. 

By organizing the class to dovetail with our Web site content, we have made it very easy for both the trainers and students to become familiar with the course content.  Librarians can return to their units and immediately practice what they have learned.  Trainers can be chosen from any branch anywhere in the city and can learn their material right off of the Web site.  Because the Internet is constantly changing, our Web site and our course material is always changing.  As we add new links to our site,  we begin to incorporate them in our teaching.  Instructors are given a certain amount of latitude in the sites they choose to teach, as long as the sites represent a cross section of what is available in that part of the Web site.  The changing course content keeps the class fresh for the instructors; the drawback is that one is continually preparing instruction.  This is not the type of class that is prepared once and then pulled out and presented on demand.

After the success of the initial class, we were asked to teach the class on a regular basis, roughly once every two months.  The class is popular with staff and we have received a lot of positive feedback from librarians.  Once we recognized the scope of this training initiative, we recruited additional trainers from within the library.  We currently have six trainers presenting the class.  We trained the trainers by having them first observe and participate in the class as a student.  With each successive class they attended, the new trainers each taught a new or different section until each trainer was prepared to teach every section of the course.  New trainers were also given shifts operating the computer during the instruction of a fellow trainer.  This quickly familiarized the new trainer with the section content and also gave them a better sense of the instructional flow.  It takes a little practice for even the most practiced instructor to get comfortable teaching from a computer.  With the help of our new trainers, we look forward to offering the class seven times in 1999. 

In August of 1998, we were asked to present a demonstration version of the class for patrons.  This was in conjunction with the library's Technology Month.  It was CPL's first foray into patron Internet instruction.  The class was offered as a two-hour seminar.  This demonstration was presented once at two different branches.  Attendees ranged from kindergartners to grandmothers.  Some of the patrons had never used computers, others had substantial computer experience. 

Changing the class from a hands-on course to a demonstration piece required very little effort.  The basic course structure remained the same.  Although the time was reduced by one hour, we were still able to cover the same total amount of content.  In the three-hour hands-on version, fifteen minutes goes to a break and much of the remaining forty-five minutes is eaten up trying to get everyone to the same screen. 

The two major changes made were in our use of language and our choice of sites.  If you have ever tried to talk "librarianese" to a family member, you will have noted the glassy-eyed look you get as you spew forth acronym after initialism.  Having taught the class to librarians only, we became comfortable teaching in the library vernacular.  The Internet and computers can be fearful things to those just testing the waters, and we didn't want to compound any feelings of uneasiness by using jargon-filled language.  Making this change simply required putting oneself into reference interview mode.  By consciously making word choices that would be familiar to a patron (such as using magazine instead of periodical), much of the cyberphobia that some participants brought with them was diminished.  In choosing sites to discuss for an audience of patrons, we tried to select sites that would best address their information needs.  Emphasis in site selection for this program was on sites helpful for consumer sources and student homework assignments.  With each class we tried to get patrons involved by asking them about their hobbies or information needs and then tailoring some of the searches to their specific interests. 

This brief foray into patron instruction proved valuable for the next transformation of this class, the ILA program. Our departmental Assistant Head Carolyn Mulac invited us to present a version of the class as a demonstration program for the Illinois Library Association's 1998 Annual Conference "The State of Service in the World of Information."  Our program, sponsored by the ILA Reference Services Forum, was presented on Monday, October 26, 1998.  Never having presented a program at a large conference, we did not know what to expect in terms of attendance.  We assumed that 100 copies of the handouts might be overkill, but we decided that we would rather be prepared than run short.  We couldn't possibly have been prepared for over 200 people attending!  We solved this dilemma by creating a sign-up sheet for those wanting copies of the handouts mailed to them.  Later, an HTML version of the handouts was mounted at the ILA Reference Services Forum Web site.

In preparing for this program, we benefited from having previously presented the class as a demonstration piece.  We were already comfortable with the four-section format, so we simply shortened the class one-half hour by discussing fewer sites.  We reverted to our library language and chose sites important for reference work.  As with all of the other classes, we used a computer attached to a projection device.  The whole program was presented "live" and, thankfully, we experienced no technical problems.  In the future we plan to have a "canned" version in PowerPoint as a backup.  The drawback in such a presentation is that the static screen restricts the instructor's discussion.  With no ability to create a topical search or to explore a particular site further, it is more difficult to speak extemporaneously about an interesting aspect of a particular site.  An audience question can often lead us to a new section of a web site or teach us something new about a site.  This sort of spontaneity is part of what makes the class interesting and keeps it fresh, and is lacking in a canned version. 

Part of the difficulty in teaching a course about Web content is that the Internet is constantly changing.   However, it is precisely this dynamic environment that makes teaching a web course so exciting and rewarding.  We look forward to the new challenges that change will bring in the design of this course.  I can only predict, based on the pace of past change, that "On the Web for Ready Reference," will live on in increasingly altered states in the future. 

Use the following URLs to access the Chicago Public Library web site:

View the HTML version of our "On the Web for Ready Reference" ILA program handouts at the ILA Reference Services Forum website:  <http://www.neiu.edu/~mdweinbe/otw~1.htm>
 

Michelle Y. Roubal is Reference Librarian in the GIS/Information Center, Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago Public Library.
LIRT News, March 1999. Volume 21, number 3.
To report problems, please contact the LIRT News Production editor at edwards@ufl.edu

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