ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


1006 /  C&RL News

edge Initiative accomplished in a timely fashion. 
O nce done, D rew  could claim credit for a full 
innovation, not an innovation th at was two-thirds 
complete. T heir sense of urgency invigorated the 
other trustees, and the full Board acted in D ecem ­
b e r 1988 to authorize additional funding.

W ith funding assured, th e  library began negoti­
ating with a small group o f library-autom ation 
vendors who could work in the D rew  network 
environm ent and prom ise delivery o f a system by 
Septem ber 1989. W e were searching for a p artn e r­
ship similar to those we had developed with Digital, 
Bell Atlanticom, Intecom , Octel, and M C I during 
th e installation of th e voice-data system. Any new 
system m ust add value to the presen t system and 
for th e library, that m eant adding Boolean search­
ing and the potential for other m achine-readable 
databases in the future.

In June 1989 we signed a contract with D ata 
Research Associates, and installed th e system over 
th e summer. By the fall, D rew  University had a 
com plete network with an online public access 
catalog that featured Boolean access for all users, 
along with electronic mail, an online encyclopedia,

and many o th er features. Six years after the intro­
duction o f th e C om puter Initiative, D rew  has a 
system th at can serve as a model for o th er liberal 
arts institutions in its comprehensiveness, simplic­
ity, and simultaneous concern for cost-contain­
m ent and innovation.

Those institutions still searching for ways to fund 
autom ating a library, or wiring a campus, or deliv­
ering sufficient personal com puting pow er to stu­
dents may w ant to consider D rew ’s approach. 
W hile the library w ent w ithout funding in the years 
w hen it sought funding for library autom ation as an 
isolated activity, th e proponents of th e network 
needed th e punch o f what a fully integrated library 
system would add to th e network in information 
delivery to sell th e netw ork to some faculty and 
trustees. Coupling the vision with sound budgeting 
and th e need to replace an outdated telephone 
system was vital. Both th e library and the office of 
th e vice-president for technology and planning 
found th at th e  strongest case for th e Knowledge 
Network rested in its relation not to a given com ­
p u te r or piece of software, b u t to the vision of 
value-added inform ation services and delivery.

N O TIS instruction for the public: Current tools 
and future needs

By Lynn W estbrook

Coordinator f o r  Reference and Instruction 
Undergraduate Library, University o f Michigan

Joining m ore than 100 other libraries across the 
country, th e University o f Michigan recently devel­
oped a local version of th e NOTIS online catalog. 
This created a critical need for basic training m ate­
rials for the public. As part of a U ser Education 
C om m ittee Subcom m ittee on Training for the 
Public, five librarians created an extensive set of 
lectures, transparencies, handouts, and exercises 
th at w ere then distributed to each o f th e 21 system 
libraries campuswide. These materials, available 
on request from LOEX,1 are based on a com bina­
tion o f th e practical dem ands faced by busy librari­
ans and basic pedagogical principles. Some portion

'F o r copies of any of the University o f Michi­
gan’s public training material, write to th e following 
address: LOEX, E astern  M ichigan University, 
Ypsilanti MI 48197; (313) 487-0168.

of th e materials should help m eet almost any need 
with th e NOTIS system, or even similar systems.

F rom  a veiy practical viewpoint, the librarians 
would be teaching u n d er a wide variety of circum ­
stances. Some would have access to microcom­
p u te r centers with a separate workstation for every 
student, while others would have only an overhead 
projector in a sem inar room. Some would have 
faculty eager for a full fifty-minute session, while 
others would be teaching undergraduates at brief 
walk-in sessions. Many would find reference and 
even circulation staff expected to b rief patrons 
quickly, while BI librarians would b e asked to add 
a few words onto th e end of an already crowded 
presentation. A few would have access to lab time, 
b u t most would not. These widely divergent needs 
m eant th at everything must be prepared for fifty-, 
twenty-, and ten-m inute presentations. Each of 
these presentations had to be prep ared  both with



December 1989 /  1007

and without th e use of workstations.
The subcom m ittee had to deal with teaching the 

same fundamental material to widely divergent 
adult audiences with various learning styles. Every­
one— faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, 
university staff, tem porary library staff, the com ­
p u ter illiterate and the power user—would need to 
be reached as effectively as possible. As Betsy 
Baker has noted, the nature o f a database is in itself 
a valid and potentially useful conceptual fram e­
work.2 Except for the concept of the database, the 
basic material is essentially mechanical; th e NOTIS 
prom pts and help screens make it rather straight­
forward for many. The subcom m ittee was con­
cerned with the oft-stated need to make use o f the 
opportunity to teach so fundamental a library tool 
as th e  catalog.3 W ith care, a few o f th e  m ore 
com m on m isconceptions about catalogs, both 
paper and electronic, might be mitigated. F or ex­
ample, the im portance of controlled vocabulary 
versus natural language and th e complexities of 
corporate author searches m ight be broached 
when appropriate. This combination of learning 
styles and material required that lectures, discus­
sion sessions, and learning cycles be created with 
due attention paid to th e needs of the visual 
learner.

O f course, once the keyword/boolean feature 
was added to the University of Michigan system, an 
entirely new piece of material was required. Since 
this feature was added well after the U ser E duca­
tion C om m ittee had been disbanded, the material 
on it was created at a later date. It too is available 
from LOEX.

These practical and educational considerations 
eventually required the creation of ten separate 
teaching scripts, each of which had a separate set of 
transparencies (the keyword/boolean material was 
added later) .T h e entire set, including transparency 
masters, was organized so that individuals could 
have all or any portion of it. Many libraries keep the 
entire set in a ring binder so that staff can pull out 
a custom-made packet o f material for most situ­
ations. Although the example searches were always 
open to alteration, an effort had been m ade to 
include something from most disciplines.

The fifty-minute script is available as a lecture, 
discussion (with workbook), and learning cycle. All 
th ree are available in two forms: for use with work­

2Betsy Baker, “A C onceptual Fram ew ork for 
Teaching Online Catalog Use,” Journal o f Aca­
demic Librarianship 12 (May 1986): 90-96.

3F o r fu rth e r read in g  in this area, see Popa 
Opritsa and D eborah Metzger, “Teaching Search 
Techniques on the Com puterized Catalog and on 
th e  Traditional C ard Catalog: A C om parative 
Study,” College and Research Libraries 49 (May 
1988): 263-74.

stations and for use w ithout workstations. Minor 
editing m ade the two forms relatively easy to set up. 
In addition to covering the contents of the data­
base, these scripts include title searching with ex­
amples o f index and guide screens, four types of 
author searching, and all the complexities of sub­
ject searching. W henever possible the students 
actually run each type of search. Common prob­
lems are dem onstrated such as using initial articles 
in title searching, corporate author hierarchy, and 
the four types of subject subdivision (time, loca­
tion, topic, and format).

The twenty- and ten-m inute scripts only worked 
in the lecture mode although they too w ere set up 
in both forms, with and w ithout workstations. The 
twenty-minute scripts dropped quite a bit o f detail 
involving common problems, did only one author 
search, and spent most o f the subject search time 
on moving around th e resulting screens. The ten- 
m inute scripts concentrate on the content o f the 
database, mention the th ree types o f searches, and 
illustrate moving around in the results o f a title 
search. Both scripts emphasize seeking reference 
assistance for any unsatisfactory search.

Once th e material had been created it was 
printed, sorted, made available on IBM and Macin­
tosh diskettes, and distributed. F or those who did 
not want to receive their material in the mail, two 
sessions were held at which staff could come to pick 
up their material and receive further explanations 
o f the options available. An electronic discussion 
forum was set up in which ideas, comments, and 
feedback were exchanged. Ten months after the 
initial material was distributed, a brief typed list of 
changes (required by the growing database), a 
transparency m aster based on the new edition of 
Library o f Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), 
updated exercises, and the new script for keyword/ 
boolean work were distributed. Corrections were 
then made on the original disks and an opportunity 
provided for anyone to receive the revisions.

W ith less than a year of experience with the 
material, a few points have come to the fore. Li­
brarians did indeed need all o f the scripts; graduate 
students and faculty required the fifty-minute ses­
sions almost exclusively; and th e undergraduates 
relied on the twenty-minute sessions. The ten- 
m inute sessions were used by individuals in ad hoc 
one-to-one efforts. In the fall term , several libraries 
set up and publicized, through ads in the student 
new spaper and flyers, a coordinated roster of train­
ing sessions of various types. This successful coor­
dination allowed library users to attend whatever 
session was most convenient for them , no m atter 
which library gave it. The opportunity to use the 
learning cycle set has not yet arisen. Having every­
thing on disk has allowed not only libraries but even 
individuals within specific libraries to customize 
their scripts. The electronic network was most



1008 /  C&RL News

effective during its first few m onths and served as 
an excellent source o f example searches and teach­
ing tips.

F uture developm ents are already affecting cu r­
rent practice. As patrons begin to access the system 
at rem ote sites, without the ready aid of any library 
staff or even a copy of LCSH, minimal training 
becomes even m ore im portant. F or example, while 
using keyword searching to bypass LC SH  is som e­
times successful, it also leads people to erroneous 
conclusions that a little information could correct. 
O thers assume that th e system is a com plete listing 
of all holdings, despite the introductory screen. 
W hile BI is not going to solve all of these ills, for the 
first tim e the library is physically moving away from 
its staff into dorms, private homes, and th e more 
than thirty m icrocom puter sites all over campus. 
P aperchase’s UM -M edline is already providing 
online access to Index Medicus using the same 
readily available software so that some patrons use 
a single workstation to search for both books and 
articles on medical topics. Discussions are u n d er­
way about m ounting th e Wilson tapes onto the

same system. This requires strong outreach and 
support efforts from libraries to continue providing 
service w here patrons n eed it. Relying on access to 
students via th e usual faculty conduits may not 
m eet this new  need. As well attended, walk-in 
training sessions dem onstrated, patrons will choose 
to learn w hen given a convenient, relevant oppor­
tunity. Another challenge o f this new  BI effort is to 
use th e hook o f teaching online catalog mechanics 
to delve into critical thinking and problem  solving, 
w here possible.4 Patrons will then learn to question 
less than optimal results o f th eir searches, no mat- 
te rw h e re  those searches takes place. Thechallenge 
is exciting and will only continue to grow.

4F o r fu rth e r reading on critical thinking, see 
E ugene Engeldinger, “Bibliographic Instruction 
and Critical Thinking: The C ontribution of th e 
A nnotated Bibliography,” RQ  28 (W inter 1988): 
195-202; and Joan Bechtel, “D eveloping and Using 
th e Online Catalog to Teach Critical Thinking,” 
Inform ation Technology and Libraries 7 (March 
1988): 30-40.

ACRL candidates, 1 9 9 0  election s

W hos who on the Spring ballot.

T he listing for each of th e following candi­

dates includes th eir title, institution, and 
institutional address.

V ic e -P r e s id e n t/P r e s id e n t -E le c t

Anne K. Beaubien, H ead, Cooperative Access 
Services, 106 H atcher G raduate Library, U niver­
sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205; 
Maxine H. R eneker, D irector o f Instructional and 
Research Services, Stanford University Libraries, 
Stanford, CA 94305-6004.

B o a r d  o f  D ir e c to r s

D iv isio n  C ouncilor: Linda Piele, Associate

D ire cto r for Public Services, Library/Learning 
C enter, U niversity o f W isconsin-Parkside, K e­
nosha, W I 53141; Rochelle Sager, Associate D ean 
of Libraries, Adelphi University, South Avenue, 
G arden City, NY 11530.

D irector-at-L arge: Ellen Broidy, C oordinator 
of Library Education Services, 386 Main Library, 
University o f California, Irvine, CA 92717; Barbara 
J. W ittkopf, H ead o f R eference D esk Services and 
BI, M iddleton Library, Louisiana State University, 
Baton Rouge, LA 70803.

D irector-at-L arge: Karin E. Begg, Associate 
University Librarian for Systems and Technical 
Services, Boston College, 410 O ’Neill Library, 
C hestnut Hill, MA 02167; Janice Bradley, P.O. Box 
37100, Phoenix, AZ 85069; Ray E. Metz, Assistant