Educating library users by means of audio-visual aids

Abstract

Organized by IATUL (International Association of Technological University Libraries), a conference on Educating the Library User was held on March 31 - April 3, 1970, in Loughborough (England).
This was the fourth of the three-yearly conferences of IATUL with 51 participants (of whom 19 were from abroad).
The conference involved 11 papers, two of which were concerned with the education of users by audio-visual aids.
In their paper, Evaluation of student response to a library instruction trials programme using audio-visual aids. H. A. Chesshyre and P. J. Hills, representatives of the University or Surrey (England), outlined the experiments of their library, where - by means of slides projected synchronouely with verbal instruction recorded on tapes - students are being taught the use of catalogues. Another version of this experiment consists in giving the student explanation of the use of catalogues by means of a portable cassette tape player. In this case the student listens to the explanation by an earphone, and is given further instruction as to finding certain bibliographical data or items. In the experimental semester, the students' proficiency was tested both before and after the instruction. Relying on the tests, several changes and improvements have been carried out in the text of the tape/slide presentation.
In his paper, The production of video-tapes for library instruction - an account of experiences at Brunel University, R. W. P. Wyatt (Brunel University, England) was concerned with the method and experiences of a twenty-minute closed-circult television programme for freshmen.
The author also recalls some of the films, shown at the conference, which all tend to facilitate the users' orientation in the library, in the use of catalogues and reference works, etc.