Library instruction needs to be flexible and adaptable to keep pace with advances in technology and methods of access to information. This book of individually authored chapters seeks to address part of this issue by providing an up-to-date collection of strategies and approaches to creating and delivering library instruction to medical and other students in the university setting.
The 24 chapters, each outlining a practical method or aspect of effective library instruction in the present age, are written largely by practising librarians, with a few by medical faculty. The focus is on delivering library instruction across the whole curriculum that lasts for the duration of the teaching semester rather than an earlier model of delivering one-shot instruction. It also considers more than one delivery mode, with face-to-face, distance and blended delivery methods featuring in various chapters.
Chapters are grouped in sections on Building relationships and trust, Learning theories, Instructional techniques and modes and Subject-based instruction in health sciences and other disciplines, providing clusters of similarly themed content. Individual topics range from instructional roles for librarians to team-based learning to the librarians’ role in evidence-based medicine. Chapters include Discussions, Case studies, Lesson places and Lists of resources.
This collection is based in practice and experience rather than being an academic treatise on the subject, which gives it value as a resource for ideas and a guide for development and implementation. The writing style varies but is largely approachable; each brief exploration of curriculum-based library instruction is both practical and informative. Each chapter ends with a practical conclusion or final thoughts that summarise the advice to readers about the topic at hand. The list of contributors at the end of the book includes email addresses, which allows readers to follow up with individual authors for more information if they so desire.
For those new to the area of providing effective library instruction for university students, this book is a great starting place for gaining ideas and looking at practical tools that can be adapted for use. For those of us with a long background in this area, some of the chapters are at too basic a level to be anything other than a refresher or reminder of established theory and current practice, yet the wide range of subjects covered means that there will be something new in one form or another for everyone.
This book is most useful to academic librarians working in the areas of library instruction, user education and learner support, and may also be of interest to learners in support services and interested faculty.
Open Polytechnic of New Zealand
© 2015, Alison Fields
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00049670.2015.1100250