Developing Competency of Australian Public Librarians in Using Online Databases (September 2001 – May 2003)

This is a collaborative project involving ITNR at Monash University and Charles Sturt University

• Chief Investigators: Dr Kirsty Williamson (Monash & CSU), Marion Bannister (CSU).

• Funders : State Library of New South Wales and National Library of Australia. Seed funding from CSU and Monash University ($5,000 each university) $55,000 total.

This project resulted partly from the findings of the ARC SPIRT project, Evaluation of the Usability of
Online Library Resources, discussed below. The earlier project had found that a major obstacle to the ‘adoption’ of online databases in public libraries was that most public librarians lacked training in their use.

Aims of the Project

• To investigate the requirements for developing and maintaining competency of public library staff in using online databases to satisfy client enquiries.

• To develop and test training modules which will meet these requirements.

Objectives

• To investigate perceptions of librarians about their present skills and needs for training in using online databases to satisfy clients' requests for information.

• To determine, through this investigation and supplementary discussions with experts, the base-line skills which are needed for competent use of online databases to meet the information needs of users.

• To test the range of skills in the target population through objective measurement using a sample of librarians.

• To investigate ways of building generic training modules which will include core sets of competencies which would apply across a range of databases and search engines.

• To develop a hierarchy of core competencies as a precursor to building the generic training modules.

• To test and evaluate the training modules with the original sample against specific learning outcomes - and make changes and adjustments as required.

Method

The research design included:

• qualitative research methods to investigate the perception of professional librarians about their present skills and training needs for using online databases to satisfy client enquiries;
• action research to develop generic training modules to meet the aims and objectives of the research; and
• evaluation methods to assess the effectiveness of the training modules, as part of the action research.

Current Status