Professional paper
KEKS – a short educational library seminars, an example of user education at “Ruđer Bošković” Institute library in Zagreb
Ivana Pažur
orcid.org/0000-0003-3200-0841
Bojan Macan
orcid.org/0000-0003-1138-4188
Abstract
Among many traditional and new library roles in modern society, education is certainly one of the most important. Along with the numerous information resources that libraries offer to users, libraries also, through various forms of education strive to enable users qucker and easier use these resources to the users, particularly digital sources.
The “Rudjer Boskovic” Institutes’ Library recognised the importance of education of library users as early as 2003, when the library seminars, known as KEKS, acronym of Kratki edukacijski knjižnični seminari (short educational library seminars), were started. Te librarians, at the invitation of the sceintists, held half an hour lectures at the laboratories and offices. They carried the necessary equipment with themselves. The topics they offered were adapted to the needs of scientists at the Institute and current information trends. Some of the first topics were: database searching, making Power Point presentations and posters, use of e-journals and interlibrary loan services.
After a pause of nearly two years, in 2006, a new cycle of seminars was initiated with the following topics: electronic journals, e-learning, database searching, library services, web search engines, institutional repository, and open access.
After these two seminar cycles, the seminars were held sporadically on the request of individual users, and within the post-graduate study.
The latest series of seminars began in 2010 with a somewhat changed conception. We abandoned the practice of holding the lectures in the laboratories and institutes because we noticed the shortcomings of such methodology. We also prolonged the duration of the seminars, so instead of the half an hour lectures we introduced seminars consisting of an hour and a half workshop and a 45 minutes lecture. The seminars are held twice a month at the Library premises and the computer equipment is prepared in dvance. The number of participants is limited to ten in order to enable individual approach to each participant. The topics have been updated according to the current trend in the world of scientific information and users’ needs: Zotero - a program for bibliographic management, effective search (with sub-themes: general skills, Web of Science, Scopus, Current Contents, EBSCO); citation analysis (with sub-themes: Web of Science / Journal Citation Reports and Scopus).
In this last seminar cycle twenty-four seminars have been held. In order to analyze their quality, and determine new topics that would be interesting for users, a survey was conducted. The results show exceptional satisfaction and great interest of the users.
Keywords
KEKS; user education; “Ruđer Bošković” Institute Library Zagreb
Hrčak ID:
80578
URI
Publication date:
8.3.2011.
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