International Bibliographic Activities in the 20th Century: A Literature Review

Michael Lorenzen, Library Instruction Coordinator, Michigan State University

Introduction

Librarians are teaching in classrooms all over the world. A search of library literature reveals articles on academic library instruction programs in Asia, Oceania, South America, Africa, and Europe. This paper will examine the 20th Century literature that explores academic library instruction programs around the world with the exception of those in North America. Only those articles that are written in English from 1901-2000 indexed in ERIC or Library Literature are considered. As such, many relevant articles written in other languages have likely been excluded. This may also explain why some countries that use English as a primary language (Nigeria, New Zealand) are well represented while other non-English speaking countries (France) and regions (South America) are sparsely covered in this literature review.

Asia

Academic library instruction programs in China have been written about on several different occasions. Morgan (1980) described the program of library instruction for education students at the University of Hong Kong. It was concluded that both the instructional librarians and the students found the program to be effective. The University of Hong Kong is based on the western model of higher education. Fang and Callison (1989) described the Chinese higher education system and how library instruction programs are developed. Examples of faculty-librarian cooperation and curriculum development from several institutions were included.

Sun and Rader (1999) reported that 421 academic institutions (39%) in China had developed library instruction programs. They concentrated their article on instructional efforts at Tsinghua University Library. Instruction had been created to teach students how to use the integrated library information system, based on a CD-ROM server. In 1998, the University was also the first Chinese academic institution to be connected to the Internet. The academic librarians were taking the lead in showing students how to search the World Wide Web effectively. The authors wrote, "Although user education developed relatively late in China, it progressed quickly. Bibliographic instruction classes were prevalent in China in the early 1980s. Since then they have become a significant part of academic librarianship to fulfill the missions of both education and information" (p. 69).

Academic librarians in India have recognized the need for library instruction. Dhyani (1974) surveyed the patrons of the Rajasthan University library. It was found that most of the patrons were deficient in their understanding of finding information in the library. Dhyani concluded that a library instruction program was needed. Umapathy (1977) published a study that indicated that 83% of the student's in a master's class in Mysore, India desired to receive instruction in the use of the university library. Gunjal and Asundi (1984) wrote about academic library instruction programs in India as a whole. They found a variety of programs but concluded that there was still a great deal of work that needed to be done in the area of library instruction.

Pakistan has not had a long tradition of academic library instruction. Anwar (1981) reported that there was a lack of available training programs in library use in Pakistani academic institutions. A survey of Pakistani scholars revealed that a large portion of them had never had any experience with getting any assistance from a librarian when doing research. Anwar advocated the development of academic library instruction programs in Pakistan and laid out a national plan for doing so.

The need for academic library instruction was also noted in pre-revolutionary Iran. Emdad and Rogers (1978) found that library use at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran would increase if faculty promoted the library. They found that students were not good users of the library either. They wrote, "It is clear that many undergraduates are not good readers and thus do not make optimal use of the library resources provided for them." (pp. 453). They concluded that the library needed to develop an orientation program to introduce the library to students. Further, they wrote that the librarians needed to do so with the aid of faculty. The authors also called for the establishment of a library skills course taught by librarians.

Ben-Chaim (1987) discussed the shared online catalog used by four academic libraries and one public library in Israel. The bulk of the article describes how the librarians in these institutions, both in the classroom and at the reference desk, teach students to use this online catalog. Graubart (1997) detailed the differences between Israeli and American academic libraries and how this made for differences in developing instruction programs. She then described the library instruction programs of seven Israeli academic libraries.

Oceania

New Zealand has produced at least four articles on academic library instruction. Durey (1973) reported on the need of New Zealand academic librarians to develop library instruction programs for undergraduates modeled on American and British programs. According to Durey, "The future must see developments in the teaching function of the university library, in the range of material which it holds, and in the kind of services which it offers to undergraduates" (p. 327). Jamieson and Simpson (1978) described the academic library instruction for medical and dental students at the University of Otago in Dunedin. The instruction was based in part on a general library tour followed by subject-related lectures and follow-up exercises.

Jones published two articles on information literacy in New Zealand in 1997. In the first, Jones (1997, “New Zealand”) wrote about information literacy as it related to workplace productivity. This included a discussion on the role of educators (and academic librarians) in assuring that university educated professionals are indeed literate with information. Jones (1997, “Maori”) explored how information literacy can be difficult to teach to one of the ethnic groups of New Zealand, the Maori. She found that the Maori do not understand either libraries or the educational system. This makes it very difficult for librarians (and others) to teach the Maori information skills.

Condon (1981) wrote about the state of academic library instruction in Australia. He found that it was highly developed and had a history that went back at least several decades. Condon also described a library instruction material clearinghouse that appeared to be an Australian version of LOEX. Burrows (1995) detailed how librarians at the University of Western Australia were delivering instruction on Internet use. A special center had been developed for scholars and librarians taught classes there on finding information on the Internet.

Papua New Guinea academic librarians have been providing classroom instruction in teachers’ colleges for years. Jackson (1981) found that the traditional one shot library instruction session was inadequate for the needs of education students. He presented twenty recommendations for improving the existing library instruction program. Jackson stressed that the greatest need was to establish a full set of courses on library skills taught by librarians. This would benefit Papua New Guinea as a whole as the newly trained teachers would be better prepared to teach library skills in the K-12 setting.

Fijian academic institutions have had some experience with library instruction. Howard (1982) described library instruction in Fiji as a whole and gave several examples from different academic institutions. She wrote that library instruction is critical in developing countries such as Fiji, and that one way that the citizens of Fiji can help raise the standard of living in their country is to make use of all available resources. She stressed the idea that it is the role of the librarian to teach why the library is important and how the Fijian people can best make use of it.

South America

There is a lack of articles detailing academic library instruction in South American countries. It is probable that many exist but that they are written in Spanish or Portuguese, which causes them to be absent in this literature review. Figueiredo (1984) wrote about academic library instruction in Brazil. It was found that a variety of programs at different universities existed to help orient students to finding information in the library. Further, many instructional librarians in Brazil believed it was important to market their classes to students and faculty, in order to create a need for the use of information and to attract users to the library. The Central Library of the University of Rio Grande do Sul had created a program specifically to train academic instruction librarians.

Africa

Nigeria appears to have developed a significant number of academic library instruction programs. Nwoye and Anafulu (1973) gave details on a required course on library skills at the University of Nigeria. The course was taught by librarians and was a part of the general studies curriculum of the university. Once the course was instituted, the use of the reference room in the library increased dramatically showing the positive effect the course had on library skills and attitudes. In stressing the need for academic library instruction, Nwoye and Anafulu wrote,

From the point of view of library development, Nigeria must be regarded as a fairly backward country. There are very few well organised public library services, and apart from a few privileged government secondary schools, no school libraries worth the name. The result is that many a Nigerian freshman may never have used a library before enrolling in one of our institutions of higher learning. (p. 251)

Adledigba (1990) wrote about the library instruction programs at a variety of academic research institutions in Nigeria. The emphasis was on agricultural libraries and their programs. Iroka (1990) gave the same type of overview for Nigerian medical schools. He concluded that library instruction efforts were in their infancy in Nigerian academic medical libraries. Ajibero (1995) described how academic library instruction was a standard service offered by many Nigerian universities. As such, he concluded that patrons would expect and desire a continuation of these programs into the 21st Century and that libraries needed to fund them.

Foss (1974) described a program at the Faurah Bay College in Sierra Leone. The librarian taught several times throughout a term as part of a foundations course. This integration in the curriculum of a non-library course included the use of a follow-up library exercise that was required to be completed by the students. Ghana also has developed at least one program. Korsah (1995) wrote about the library instruction classes taught by librarians at the University of Cape Coast. Another small African nation with a library instruction program is Malawi. Matenje (1995) detailed how library orientation was conducted at Chancellor College in the University of Malawi.

Academic library instruction in Southern African nations was explored by Fidzani (1995). A variety of programs are found in nations such as South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. The programs in South Africa appear to be the best developed and have the greatest acceptance. The instruction programs in the less developed countries are newer and still trying to establish themselves. Sayed and De Jager (1997) focused exclusively on the nation of South Africa. They described the progress of a major information literacy project being carried out by five academic institutions.

Europe

A great deal has been written on the topic in Great Britain. Lubans (1974) described the library instruction programs at the British Universities of Surrey, Southampton, Bath, Loughborough, Leeds, Bradford, Lancaster, and East Anglia. Several areas were examined including evaluation, slide-tape programs, integration of library instruction in the university curriculum, universal library skills, and freshman library skills. Differences and similarities between the British and American approaches to academic library instruction were examined. Fleming (1986) published a similar overview of British academic library instruction over a decade later.

One author wrote that the British model of academic library user education had one advantage over the American model. Sharma (1978) looked at several American library instruction programs. The author felt the key to the success of any academic instruction program was good faculty-librarian cooperation. Comparing the American programs with British programs, Sharma held that the British programs were more successful in achieving successful faculty-librarian interactions for teaching library skills.

Hanson conducted a survey in 1981/82 of 100 higher education institutions in England and Wales. The survey looked at the librarians' abilities to apply the principles of educational technology in their teaching activities. Hanson (1984) found that while there were a variety of user education activities in British academic library instruction, most were not based on sound educational theory. The author advocated that British academic instructional librarians move toward the use of cognitive perspectives on learning theory that were being used by American academic librarians.

Another look at academic library instruction from Great Britain comes from Scotland. Robertson (1992) wrote about Scottish programs that dealt with international students. The author conducted a survey that found that there were many problems with international students trying to use Scottish academic libraries. Several suggestions were considered for dealing with the problem. For example, the need for more instruction for international students is uneven. Students from North America and Europe needed less instruction than students from Africa or Asia where libraries tended to operate on different models than the libraries in the West.

The academic instruction programs in the Nordic countries have been written about as well. Sturges (1978) described academic library instruction programs in Denmark. The author categorized the instruction into three levels: courses in library use for beginners, courses in library use to beginning subject majors, and advanced courses in library use to subject majors. Sturges wrote an extensive description of the library instruction to history majors at Odense and Aarhus University. Most information on Nordic academic library instruction comes from Nancy Fjallbrant who wrote three separate articles on the topic. The first, Fjallbrant (1982), examined programs in Sweden. She explored library orientation programs and the approaches to teaching manual methods of information retrieval and computerized information retrieval. She also looked at how this instruction was evaluated.

Fjallbrant (1987) looked at programs in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. She discussed the development of programs in these countries over ten years and how the academic librarians in these countries were cooperating with each other to improve instruction. Fjallbrant (1990) furthered elaborated on her previous works and described the impact of information technologies on the Nordic academic library instruction programs. She looked at online databases, optical storage devices, electronic publishing, and e-mail in regards to how these technologies were impacting library user education.

Academic library instruction was a new concept in the Netherlands in the early 1980s. Boerma and Arnold (1982) reported that the whole concept was not very well developed. The authors wrote about how library instruction programs and texts were in the initial stages of development at six Dutch universities. A large portion of the article focused on the efforts at the University of Wageninger where library user education was made compulsory for all 1400 students. The authors concluded that the enthusiasm of Dutch academic instruction librarians would determine the success of these programs in the Netherlands.

German academic libraries have a long tradition of instructional services. German library literature records various examples of library instruction from the 17th to 19th Centuries. Ewert (1986) gave a summary of this literature and detailed where the library instruction occurred, who generally was conducting it, and what was covered. Unfortunately, the article was written in communist East Germany and most of the examples are tied into how these instruction sessions ultimately aided the climate of revolution against capitalism. This makes it difficult to determine the curriculum of the classes or how many non-revolutionary library instruction examples may have occurred.

Both Koch (1984) and Schmidmaier (1987) examined academic library instruction programs in Germany in the 1980s. Koch detailed programs in West German while Schmidmaier did the same for East Germany. The latter article gave the East German view on how to teach students online searching techniques. The author advocated that the teaching faculty should assume the responsibility for teaching online searching skills in their courses. The main problem was found that most faculty need to receive training from a librarian before they can adequately teach the information themselves to their students in class.

Eastern Europe (in particular Russia, Ukraine, and Hungary) was looked at by Swenson and Garrison-Terry (1994). They found that academic library instruction had occurred under the old communist system of higher education. They visited a variety of libraries in these countries and found that the change to a free-market system and democracy had radically altered the landscape of higher education. Most programs were in flux and most issues that had been standard under the communist system were being reconsidered. Academic librarians had been continuing their instruction efforts and the changes presented both challenges and opportunities for these instructional librarians. The authors wrote, "Russian and Ukrainian librarians have not yet formulated an independent and systematic approach to BI, while many of those in Hungary have made such strides and look ever more to the West for models. American librarians may be able to offer our colleagues in Eastern Europe some positive pointers on library instruction and other forms of library outreach" (p. 110).

Finally, one English article has come from France detailing an instructional program there. Santa Vicca (1990) wrote, "Bibliographic instruction in France, with its own history and traditions, continues to develop as a service offered through university libraries. Only during the previous two decades has it begun to be implemented on a wide and systematic scale, and to be recognized as one of the multitude of services offered by a professional librarian" (p. 189). While looking at this broader picture in France, Santa Vicca concentrated the article on the academic library instruction program at the Universite de Nice, Sophia-Antipolis. This program focused on teaching library skills to French language and literature students.

Summary

Academic librarians are teaching in classrooms all over the world. A search of library literature reveals articles on academic library instruction programs in Asia, Oceania, South America, Africa, and Europe. While some countries appear to have fairly well developed academic library instruction programs, authors in other countries have written to indicate that there is a need for these services to be developed. The necessary limitation of this review to English language sources has undoubtedly left out a great deal of material that would further illustrate the richness of these programs worldwide. Regardless, academic library instruction is not a uniquely American phenomenon even though it was largely developed in the United States.

Selected References

Adledigba, Y. (1990). User education in research institute's libraries in Nigeria. Quarterly Bulletin of the International Association of Agricultural Librarians and Documentalists, 35, 73-76.

Ajibero, M. I. (1995). User expectations from Nigerian University Libraries services in the 21st Century. Public and Access Services Quarterly, 1, 33-49.

Anwar, M. A. (1981). Education of the user of education. International Library Review, 13, 365-83.

Boerma, E.J. and Arnold, C. A. (1982). User education in the Netherlands; A study of complexity in a small non-English speaking country. INFUSE, 6, 7-10.

Burrows, T. (1995). Educating for the Internet in an academic library: The Scholars' Centre at the University of Western Australia. Education of Information, 13, 229-42.

Cheuk, B. W. (1997). An experienced based information literacy model in the workplace: Case studies from Singapore. In Information literacy: The professional issue. Proceedings of the third national literacy conference. Adelaide: University of South Australia Library, 74-82.

Dhyani, P. (1974). Need for library instruction to readers in Rajasthan University: A survey. UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries, 28, 156-59.

Emdad, A. A. and Rogers, A. R. (1978). Library use at Pahlavi University. College and Research Libraries, 39, 448-55.

Ewert, G. (1986). The beginnings of instruction in library use: Selected German examples from the 17th to 19th centuries. Research Strategies, 4, 177-84.

Fang, P. and Callison, D. (1989). User education in academic libraries of China. Research Strategies, 7, 79-86.

Fidzani, B. T. (1995). User education in academic libraries; a study of trends and development in Southern Africa. In Booklet 7: 61st IFLA General Conference proceedings, August 20-25, 1995. Istanbul: International Federation of Library Associations, 130-35.

Figueiredo, N. (1984). User education and marketing of information services in Brazil. ERIC ED 253 253.

Fjallbrant, N. (1982). User education in Swedish academic libraries: A survey of recent developments. Libri, 32, 224-40.

Fjallbrant, N. (1987). Online user education in the Nordic countries. IATUL Quarterly, 1, 35- 40.

Fjallbrant, N. (1990). Why user education and how can information technology help? IFLA Journal, 16, 405-13.

Fleming, H. (1986). User education in academic libraries in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Academic Librarianship, 1, 18-40.

Foss, V. M. (1974). Reader instruction at Faurah Bay College Library, University of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone Library Journal, 1, 36-39.

Graubart, M. (1995). Orientation sessions in Israeli academic libraries. Research Strategies, 13, 165-75.

Greig, J. S. et al. (1973). Reader education for engineers. Australian Academic and Research libraries, 4, 119-25.

Gunjal, S. R. and Asundi, A. Y. (1984). User education and training. Herald of Library Science, 23, 16-23.

Howard, L. S. (1982). Educating the library user in Fiji. Fiji library association journal, 8, 8-15.

Iroka, L. (1990). Library orientation and instruction for students in Nigerian medical schools. Research Strategies, 8, 82-84.

Jackson, M. M. (1981). Teachers college libraries in Papua New Guinea. ERIC ED 207 600.

Jones, E. (1997b). Information literacy for Maori: A cultural context. In Information literacy: The professional issue. Proceedings of the third national literacy conference. Adelaide: University of South Australia Library, 70-73.

Jones, E. (1997). Perspectives on information literacy in New Zealand: An overview. In Information literacy: The professional issue. Proceedings of the third national literacy conference. Adelaide: University of South Australia Library, 55-69.

Koch, H. (1984). Library research in the Federal Republic of Germany. Library and Information Science Research, 6, 133-53.

Korsah, J. E. (1994). Towards effective utilization of university library resources: The situation in University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Aslib Proceedings, 46, 264-66.

Lorenzen, M. (2001). Brief history of library instruction in the United States. Illinois Libraries, 83(2), 8-18.

Lubans, J. (1975/76). Educating the library user in England. MPLA Newsletter, 20, 3.

Matenje, F. A. (1995). Library orientation at the University of Malawi. Information Development, 11, 42-45.

Morgan, V. E. (1980). Library instruction for education students at Hong Kong University. Education Libraries Bulletin, 23, 22-30.

Nwoye, S.C. and Anafulu, J. C. (1973). Instructing university students in library use: The Nsukka experiment. Libri, 23, 251-259.

Patel, J. (1989). South Asian heritage bibliographic instruction. Herald of Library Science, 28, 56-64.

Reid, B. J. (1973). Bibliographic teaching in French and politics at the University of Leicester. Journal of Librarianship, 4, 293-303.

Robertson, J. E. (1992). User education for overseas students in higher education in Scotland. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 24, 33-51.

Santa Vicca, E. (1990). A case study of bibliographic instruction in France: Bibliotheque des Letres, Universitede de Nice, Sophia-Antipolis. Research Strategies, 8, 181-90.

Sayed, Y. and DeJager, K. (1997). Towards an investigation of information literacy in South African students. South African Journal of Library and Information Sciences, 65, 5-12.

Sun, P. and Rader, H. B. (1999). Academic library user education in China. Reference Services Review, 27(1), 69-72.

Swensen, R. and Garrison-Terry, S. (1994). Dispelling the "old green spinach": Impressions of bibliographic instruction in Eastern Europe. Research Strategies, 12, 94-114.

A different version of this paper appeared as "Library Instruction Outside of North America in the 20th Century," ERIC ED #464 647. The copyright holder has granted MLA Forum the copyright to this article and agreed to have it republished in this form.

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