Introduction

This chapter considers the role of the information professional in training end-users in the use of library resources. Although not traditionally considered one of the core elements of an information professional's role, in the same way that answering research queries or cataloguing might be, it is an increasingly important aspect of the services offered by corporate libraries. Although the nature of the clientele and resources used may vary from organization to organization, not to mention the logistics used, it is clear that information professionals across the corporate sector are carrying out some form of training. A 2012/13 survey by the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL, 2013) recorded that 68% of full-time respondents said user education on electronic resources was a duty forming a significant part of their role. In a recent informal survey of media librarians conducted by one of the authors as part of her chartership portfolio, 66% of respondents said they conducted at -desk training, 59% attended inductions for new employees and 41% organized group training sessions for their users. The authors bring their experience of running training and user-education sessions for very different types of organization to show why information professionals are carrying out this work, and how it can be done most effectively.

Information literacy in the workplace

Many of the theories about training users to carry out research using information products stem from work around the concept of ‘Information literacy’. Paul Zurkowski, then president of the Information Industry Association, coined the phrase in a paper to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science in 1974, arguing for a national strategy in the USA to enable the entire population to become information literate within a decade. Zurkowski wrote at a time when computers and online library systems were coming into common use, but before the advent of the world wide web and advances in mobile technology that we enjoy now. If information overload (what Zurkowski termed an ‘overabundance of information’) was a problem then, the situation we face is far more serious 40 years later.