Online library tutorials in Mexican universities: presence and characteristics
| Date | 21 November 2016 |
| Pages | 787-802 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-08-2016-0094 |
| Published date | 21 November 2016 |
| Author | Andrés Fernández-Ramos |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information user studies,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Online library tutorials
in Mexican universities:
presence and characteristics
Andrés Fernández-Ramos
Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliotecológicas y de la Información,
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess the presence of online library tutorials in the library
websites of public universities in Mexico and to analyze the main characteristics of these materials.
Design/methodology/approach –Through October and November, 2015, the number of online
library tutorials was quantified in 230 public universities in Mexico and their characteristics were
analyzed based on an 18-item template grouped into four categories: general information, presentation,
content and active learning.
Findings –Only 81 (29.2 percent) of the 279 libraries evaluated offer some type of instructional
material to their users. A great variability was found regarding the quantity of tutorials presented by
each library and its origin (elaborated by the library vs third party materials). The majority of tutorials
deal with the use of library services or the management of a specific information resource. The most
usual formats are pdf and video, and generally have few elements of active learning.
Practical implications –Results obtained in this study provide a useful diagnosis for
decision-making regarding the creation, improvement and diffusion policies of online library
tutorials in university libraries.
Originality/value –This is the first study carried out about the presence and characteristics of online
library tutorials in university libraries in Mexico.
Keywords Mexico, Information literacy, Library instruction, University libraries,
Online instruction, Tutorials
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
University libraries have demonstrated that they play an essential role in helping
institutions achieve their academic mission (Kuh and Gonyea, 2015), notonly by making
collections available for teachers and students for their academic development, but also
by developinginstructional activities aimed at theirusers. These activities rely mainly on
user training and information literacy programs. The first concept leads toward the use
of library resources and services, while the second one has a wider objective and is
related to the development of higher-order cognitive skills, such as recognition of
information needs, their search, evaluation, and their ethical and efficient use.
Since new educational models give more and more significance to the development
of skills and abilities as well as to self-learning, having the necessary competencies to
properly access and use information has become very important for students. However,
it is common that the newly enrolled students do not have these skills. Many of these
students rely heavily on the internet to look for any kind of information, especially on
Google. They do not use appropriate specific information resources, do not formulate
sophisticated search strategies, are not used to evaluate the credibility and reliability of
the information found and do not use that information in an ethical manner in their
academic assignments (Noe, 2013; Taylor, 2012). Moreover, many students are not
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 34 No. 4, 2016
pp. 787-802
©Emerald Group Publis hing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-08-2016-0094
Received 18 August 2016
Revised 27 September 2016
29 September 2016
Accepted 26 October 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
787
Online library
tutorials
aware of and underuse library services and resources (Toner, 2008), particularly ethnic
minorities (Green, 2012) and international students (Wang and Frank, 2002). This
situation is reversible, since through an adequate training adapted to the particular
features and needs of students, they may acquire the information and library skills
necessary for their academic development. This explains why the instructional
activities in university libraries became essential as time went by, currently being one
of the most relevant and best valued services (Chen and Lin, 2011; Long and Schonfeld,
2014; Wolff et al., 2016).
From the early 1990s, the channels available to teach this type of instruction
expanded with internet development. So, in addition to traditional face-to-face
instruction, users now had online instruction, based on the student’s self-learning
through training materials in the web, and blended instruction, which considered the
use of electronic resources as a complement to face-to-face instruction. Currently,
instruction through online tutorials has become popular in libraries, due mostly to the
following reasons: it is as effective as face-to-face instruction, both in terms of learning
as well as user preferences (Zhang et al., 2007); saves time for librarians, who have
difficulties to teach more and more students with less resources (Adebonojo, 2011;
Kraemer et al., 2007; Kratochvil, 2014); it reaches a greater number of students
(Stiwinter, 2013); responds to the instructional needs of students enrolled in distance
education, whose number has grown over the years (Pastula, 2010; Poe and Graham,
2006); and favors self-learning, since it allows training from any time and place
(Palmer et al., 2012; Su and Kuo, 2010).
Online tutorials that have been created in libraries are very different and vary
according to its purpose, subject treated, available resources for its elaboration or
according to the public they are aimed at. As information technologies developed, these
materials have evolved from simple linear applications, with text predominance and
being slightly interactive, to sophisticated module systems, with plenty multimedia
elements and more possibilities to interact with the tutorial (Fernández-Ramos, 2015).
However, this evolution has not been the same among libraries; great differences exist
in relation to the characteristics of each one and its organizational, economic or cultural
circumstances.
Since there is little literature which analyzes online instruction in Latin American
libraries and no specific study offering a global view of its introduction in libraries of
Mexican Universities or the characteristics of the employed instructional materials, the
objectives of this work are to assess how many libraries at public Mexican Universities
have online tutorials on their websites to train their users, as well as to analyze the
main characteristics of these instructional resources.
Literature review
The librarian and academic communities have great interest in online information
literacy and library instruction, shown by the huge amounts of literature on the subject
(Fernández-Ramos, 2016b). The majority of these studies deal with concrete initiatives
in creating tutorials in some library, describing in detail the stages followed in its
elaboration and the contents or software used (Noe and Bishop, 2005;
Somoza-Fernández and Rodríguez-Parada, 2011); however, we may also find in the
literature few articles about creation guidelines for this type of materials (Koneru, 2010;
Nagra and Coiffe, 2010; Rand, 2013), review of good pr actices (Dewan and
Steeleworthy, 2013; Hess, 2013; Maddison, 2013), comparison of different types of
tutorials (Baker, 2014; Craig and Friehs, 2013; Hahn, 2012; Turner et al., 2015) or studies
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