Real uses of the Web for online bibliographic instruction

[Linda Hyman]

I am working on an application to provide web-based bibliographic
instruction.  What I have done so far is located at
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/edfirst/appcamp/web/LibIdeas.html.  Called
"Especially for Librarians, this was created for a "camp" we hosted May
21-May 23.  The camp agenda is located at
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/edfirst/appcamp/agenda.html.  There is a tool that
prompts the user for information, allows text input, and then creates an
HTML document.  You can choose to create HotLists, Treasure Hunts, and Web
Activitities (now at http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/filamentality/).
Further applications include tutorials on getting graphics into your web
pages and on making changes to your Filamentality product.  These products
were created by the three of us here on the Pacific Bell Education First
Application Design Team.

"Especially for Librarians" is not complete; but so many people are now
asking about this kind of application,  that I really need to get moving
faster.  The example I used was San Diego State University's catalog.  As
you can see, the browser can provide directions and screen prints of the
catalog.  The user can read the browser, invoke a telnet session and
perform the tasks all at the same time.  This can be done with other online
or local databases.  The Web4Lib archive has some instructions for this
kind of batch file writing and is linked within "Especially for
Librarians."  Using Beyond the Son of Filamentality
(http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/filamentality/beyond/beyond.html), you can
quickly learn how to grab the document source off of the browser, edit the
text, and customize the catalog portion of "Especially for Librarians" for
your facility.

There seems to be a plethora of network-based (Ethernet and TCP)
conferencing tools emerging.  It seems to me that there are many
opportunities for users who are struggling to contact the Reference staff,
regardless of where they are located, and confer on specific information
needs or access tool problems they are experiencing.  We have access to
ISDN videoconferencing,  so we have not experimented much with these lower
bandwidth solutions.  However, if I were not located in this ivory tower;
but was on a real Reference desk, I would be looking seriously at them.
Either that or a "chat" Reference tool.  Once your local or web-based
instruction fails,  the user could begin a real time instructional session.

Have you seen Shelve-It!  It was a Visual Basic program that provided
shelving instruction.  It was available as a demo for a limited time.  I am
looking for it now on the Web.  I can't find it; I guess it died.

>I am trying to locate real applications of the web in bibliographic
>instruction.  I am not simply after lists of courses or outlines of
>sessions.  I am after real instruction where a patron sits down by
>themselves and learns from the web how to use a library or access a
>catalog,etc.

Linda Woods Hyman-Education First Initiative
Pacific Bell/San Diego State University
Dept. of Educational Technology
San Diego  CA  92182  (619) 594-4414
e-mail:  lhyman at mail.sdsu.edu
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/edfirst/edfirst.html