COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS

Bibliographic Instruction Extending Library Services to a Field-Based Program

The Foster G. McGaw Graduate School of the National College of Education, Evanston, Illinois, offers a field-based program for teachers who want to work on their master s degree, but who cannot justify a long drive or time away from their family and workplace. This well-received program has over 40 classes in the Chicago metropolitan area, including groups in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Danville, Illinois.

The convenience of having class sessions close to home or place of employment is an important advantage of the program. Teachers find it beneficial to pursue graduate study with colleagues from their own school district. Classes are located in nearby schools, churches, hospitals, and community centers.

The program design includes the integration and application of educational theory and research procedures while a relevant field study is conducted. The field study is defined as a systematic and objective inquiry of a concern, interest, or issue in the teacher’s professional field setting. The development and implementation of the field study are continuous throughout the threeterm program.

Because the field-based classes meet off campus, students do not have easy access to the college library. This presents special problems when research must be done for the required individual project. To meet this need, reference librarians from the National College of Education go to field sites to provide the necessary library services and instruction for each group. As a fieldbased group starts its program, a reference librarian meets with the class at a community library close to the meeting site. Before the first class meeting the reference librarian makes contact with the staff of the local community library by phone. Later the librarian makes a personal visit to become familiar with the resources and personnel of that particular library.

At the library session the reference librarian introduces the students to resources in their fields of study. The librarian works in close cooperation with the class instructor to make sure students have hands-on experience with indexes and other sources needed for them to complete the research process. This includes an extensive search of the education indexes and use of the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Thesaurus for proper descriptors to be used in an upcoming literature search.

Computerized ERIC searches are an integral part of the total program. More than 2.7 million times a year at over 3,265 locations across the United States, someone uses ERIC. Moreover, about one-third of all American educators have used ERIC resources. These statistics come from a new cost and usage study conducted by King Research, Inc. ‚ for the National Institute of Education, which sponsors ERIC and provides slightly more than 4% of the estimated $136 million spent each year to develop, distribute, and use the system.

Approximately ten weeks after the off-campus library instruction session, two librarians bring a portable computer terminal to the regular group meeting site. By this time the librarians have received a completed computer search form from each student and have worked out an appropriate search strategy for each topic. While one reference librarian is online doing a search with a student, the other is conducting a final interview with the next student to make sure the student’s descriptors and planned strategy produce the best results.

Authors Leo Longhead (standing) and Norman Weston finalize computer search strategies with students Wendy Cornwall and John Huddle.

In about seven days each student receives a printout of 15-75 journal citations and abstracts. They then use the printout to find specific articles for more in-depth research. The National College of Education library also issues every student a library card which can be used at any of the three full-service campuses in the Chicago area. Documents, books, or magazine articles can be obtained from any of these library locations or through inter-library loan.

Extending library services to a field-based program requires an active service-oriented library. For the past year and a half the National College of Education has successfully brought librarians and library service to field-based classes in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. The librarian is there to serve the students, not the library, and the computer is there to help the librarian extend those services. This approach, along with a commitment to teamwork with the field instructors, has resulted in a rapid expansion of the program and a more central and vital role for the library in the overall functioning and future of the college.-Leo Longhead and Norman Weston.

Editor s Note: Leo Longhead is an instructor in the Graduate Field-Experience Program, and Norman Weston is public services librarian for the National College of Education, Evanston.■ ■

BERKELEY’S EMERGENCY RESPONSE PROGRAM

The Library Security Council at the University of California, Berkeley, recently inaugurated a series of seven courses designed to train library staff to respond quickly and appropriately in different kinds of emergencies.

Created by library and budget planning officer Jeff Pudewell, the program offers the following courses:

1. Fire Prevention and Response. A thorough study of the nature and causes of fire in the library. It includes a lecture, discussion, a film, and hands-on training in the use of fire fighting equipment (extinguishers, hoses, alarm systems, and sprinklers).

2. Security of Persons, Property, and Collections. Inside information on how to stop crime in libraries: incident reporting, treatment of evidence, building security, protection of rare materials, and a tour of the police department.

3. Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation. Medical certification in a vital, life-saving skill.

4. Emergency First Aid. Red Cross certification in emergency first aid skills, including how to care for injuries until the doctor arrives.

5. Wet and Damaged Library Materials. First aid for library materials caught in a flood or fire and how to care for worn and brittle books. The course includes lecture, discussion, and demonstration.

6. Health and Safety on the Job. Everything you want to know about employment safety, ineluding films, discussion of chronic health concerns, safety hazards, and accident prevention and reporting.

7. Earthquake Response Management. A comprehensive analysis of earthquake scenarios.

The courses are taught by patrolmen of the campus Police Department, the deputy campus fire marshall, instructors from the American Red Cross, and representatives from the Facilities Management Department and the Environment and Safety Health Unit. The Wet and Damaged Library Materials course is taught by library conservation officer Barclay Ogden. Each course lasts eight hours and is taught in two half-day segments, except for Ogden’s which is a four-hour course.

Pudewell said that the program has been strictly voluntary and there have been waiting lists for nearly all the courses. Everyone who successfully completes a course will automatically become a member of the Library Emergency Response Team. Their names and areas of training will eventually be published in the library directory so that untrained staff members can contact them in emergency situations. Each team member will be required to take refresher courses at least once a year in order to remain in the active file.

Luckily no disasters have occurred since the inception of the program early this year, but Pudewell feels confident that library staff will be much better prepared to handle future problems. ■■