WebJunction

Seattle- a world of dot-coms and internet cafés, a place where everyone's online all the time, brandishing integrated wireless genetically engineered cellphone-pager-PDA-espresso-machines like so many light sabers…

Of course, for most people Seattle is like any other place, and its big-city library system faces exactly the same challenges as the rest of us-a majority of patrons who are technically inexperienced and need help with the basics:

• “I want to find a book but have been lost ever since they took my card catalog away. I hate asking the librarian for help every time I look for something!”

• “Who can believe anything the Internet says? It's just a bunch of ranting and raving!”

• “I'd love to see those pictures of my grandkids my daughter wants to send me, but…”

The Seattle Public Library's Brian Bannon was tasked with developing new technology training programs for patrons who never darken the door of an Internet cafe.

Brian and his colleagues did some creative investigating, and they developed a short list of key points to keep in mind as they put the programs together:

• Patron, heal thyself! A classic librarianship technique—the reference interview—was a key guiding principle for SPL's technology training. Teaching people to use technology is kind of like teaching them to conduct their own reference interview: it's a process. So the training focus wouldn't be on giving people information but on teaching them how to retrieve and evaluate information for themselves.

• Teaching people to fish—for information. One guiding principle was the concept of “information literacy,” a hot concept in academic libraries that is starting to make its way into the public library world. It's a big information world out there, and to cope with this world people need not just repeatable technical skills but also a big-picture understanding of how those skills can be used most effectively.

• Get in line, please. In order to make the training as valuable as possible, the tech training team looked at ways to bring the courses they were developing into alignment with patrons' needs. So they looked carefully at what people were actually doing in the library and tailored the training to focus specifically on those tasks. In addition, they took a look at the technical literacy requirements for high school graduation developed by the State of Washingtonto ensure that what they were teaching would be in synch with a commonly held community standard.

Based on this groundwork, Brian and his colleagues developed courses in three areas: computer basics, Internet basics, and email. In every case, the emphasis was on teaching the process of gathering information. Brian says, “We wanted to `teach skills' as an avenue for conveying information about what information is, how to get to it, how to evaluate it, how to be selective, so that you can meet your own information needs.”

They avoided a line-up of classes on software application skills, in part because courses on Microsoft Office and the like were readily available at community technology centers in the area, but also because they wanted to make teaching information literacy the primary goal of their classes.

For example, in the computer basics class, patrons learn how to use a mouse and how to type information in a text box—but all this learning takes place within the library's online catalog. It's a win-win situation: patrons develop the general computer skills they want, and the library imparts a foundational aspect of information literacy-the ability to find out what resources the library has. “They came in so they could learn about computers,” Brian says. “They went out learning how to find records in our catalog.”

The same principle is at work in the Internet basics classes. Patrons are introduced to search engines, directories, and databases, but at the same time the curriculum leads them toward a higher-level understanding. They discover that the Internet has many different types of information, each of which needs to be evaluated and used in a different way. They learn that allWeb sites are not created equal, and they develop the skills to evaluate and utilize them appropriately—information literacy, wrapped in a nice attractive package of Internet skill-building!

And the email skills class works the same way: SPL teaches this subject in the context of communicating with the library itself, thereby orienting patrons to using the digital reference services that will be coming soon. More importantly, this approach helps patrons see email as yet another information-gathering resource, not just a way to chat with their friends and relatives. What might have been just a series of how-to steps becomes an opportunity for greater patron empowerment.

The delivery of these classes to the library's 26 branches was an additional challenge. Clearly, the patrons needed the instruction in their own neighborhoods—but how to deliver it effectively? In-library training on library computers was OK, but heavy demands by other users and the difficulty of scheduling and delivering classes in a consistent way meant another solution was needed.

Verizon to the rescue! Helped by a grant from the telecommunications provider, Brian and his team were able to acquire a set of 11 laptops and a projector, which they neatly package into a road-ready training lab. To reduce the burden on branch libraries, the laptops were set up with internal wireless access points—and voila! instant, painless Internet connections! The mobile lab rotates through the branch libraries for 3 weeks at time, providing year-round opportunities for the whole city to participate.

Wherever the classes are taught, it's perhaps most gratifying to see how information literacy plays out in specific terms, with the newly info-literate gathering information (new emigrants reading newspapers from their home countries, on the Web, in their own language), putting information to active use (senior citizens planning their RV trips using Mapquest), or using information tools for self-expression (at-risk teens learning how to build their own Web sites).

While the library has experimented with more focused special interest courses, two years into the program it's the basic skills classes that are always full, with a waiting list. And as a result, Seattle's library patrons are becoming more information-literate, more engaged with technology—and more connected with the Seattle Public Library.

You can reach Brian Bannon of the Seattle Public Library through the WJ member directory (member name: bbannon) or atBrian.Bannon@spl.org.