Användarundervisning på högskolebibliotek
en observationsstudie
This Masters thesis investigates user education at academic libraries. The increased demand on students to keep themselves updated in the information society of today urges libraries to develop their user education, concerning both content and teaching strategies. The aim of this study is to examine user education at academic libraries, and the approach of librarians in their teaching. The research questions address how librarians implement the user education and what they focus on. We also want to explore what differences and similarities there are between the user educations, and if anything could be further developed within them. The method used for the study is observation. Five different user educations are observed. We analyse the observations by using Kuhlthaus and Bruces theories of the information seeking process and information literacy. The results of the study are presented in systematically grouped categories, which our observation scheme was built upon. The user educations focused on activities around information sources, and practical or technical issues. We found that the examined user educations were considerably alike. No particular emphasis on a specific part of the education was found, but the result indicates that there was an absence of focus on information use. The reason, for the lack of the information use approach in educations, may be because the time which the librarians have at their hands is limited. However, as a proposal, the educations must put a bigger emphasis on information use and the information seeking process, to better encourage students information literacy.