Traditional bibliographic instruction and today’s information users

Abstract

PurposeThis paper takes forward strands from “Evaluating the quality of library portals” by the author and places them in the context of different approaches to teaching students about information use.Design/methodology/approachAn opinion piece which examines the impact on user behaviour of traditional mechanical library skills training (such as “library orientation”, “bibliographic instruction”, or “information skills training” rather than true information literacy‐based teaching). The paper points out the similarity in the effects of such teaching to the effects of offering users a more powerful mechanical information retrieval tool (such as a library portal or internet search engine) without effective support on how the information retrieved should be used for significant educational outcomes.FindingsFor librarians to be custodians of the highest standards of intelligent information use, they must demonstrate a meaningful, rather than a mechanical understanding and application of information literacy in their everyday practice. Without this, information users will rightly turn to new, non‐mediated forms of information use such as internet search engines, which can deal with purely technical challenges of information retrieval superficially well. Both the users and the profession itself will be the poorer as a result.Research limitations/implicationsAn expression of opinion about the dangers of pedagogically underdeveloped user education on user behaviour.Practical implicationsThis opinion piece gives some clear and practical insights for the application of information literacy principles to library practice.Originality/valueThis piece points out the ironic similarities in the effect of a mechanistic or tool‐based approach to user education and unmediated user access to internet search engines or Library portals: above all, a “more is better” approach in the information user, marked by citing too much poorly digested, poorly evaluated data.