Information Skills of Librarians Working at Public Universities in Bangladesh: A Task-Based Analysis of Pre- and Post-Training Performance Scores

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to empirically examine the information skills of public university librarians and whether attending a short training on navigation to e-resources results in improvements in their knowledge base. A group of 33 librarians working at different public university libraries participated in this study. They were participants in a 90-min long training program on navigation to e-resources conducted at University Grants Commission of Bangladesh. The survey questionnaire, consisted of 12 information tasks, was distributed and answered before the training. The same tasks were repeated at the end of the training session to see the improvement of information skills. It was found that librarians did not have adequate knowledge of information skills; in fact, a major proportion of university librarians demonstrated inappropriate and insufficient knowledge before the training. The training helped improve their performance score significantly in six out of 12 tasks. The study concluded that the provision of systematic and regular training will improve the skills of librarians and it will positively affect their service outcomes.

Keywords:

• Bangladesh
• information literacy
• information skills
• librarians
• Public University