BACKGROUND
The University of Parma is a medium-size University located in the North of Italy. It offers more than 60 degree courses, grouped in 11 Faculties, 32 Master courses and 44 PhD courses. About 30.000 students enrolled in 2003 and one thousands professors and researchers develop their activity in 43 Departments.
The University library system coordinates 6 Faculty libraries and 20 Department libraries. They offer students and teachers a rich collection of books and printed journals as well as an increasingly number of electronic bibliographic resources (about 70 databases and more than 4000 e-journals). Students are required to become independent in the use of library resources, and to access and use information in an effective and critical way.
OBJECT
An information literacy educational programme has been developed by the librarians at the University of Parma. Its purpose is to help undergraduate students to:
- Retrieve information using up-to-date methods of
bibliographic research
- Evaluate quality of information
- Successfully employ information
- Quote bibliographical sources with propriety.
ACTIVITY
Between 1999 and 2000 a group of 25 librarians of the University of Parma attended a series of seminars/laboratories in order to:
- Acquire knowledge and skills about users education
- Plan and set up a course addressed to students which help them become increasingly self-sufficient in searching, selecting, evaluating and organizing information resources.
Over the year 2001 this group of librarians successfully set up an experimental course and developed an educational programme to be included in curricula studiorum, using the innovations of the recent Italian University reform.
In 2002 the programme “From the Library to the Net”, approved by the Rector and the University Senate, was included among optional activities for undergraduates. Each Faculty could choose whether to assign credits to the course. Seven courses (five of which from the Faculty of Pharmacy and two of which from the Faculty of mathematics, physics and natural science) promptly agreed to the proposal.
METHODS
In academic year 2002/2003 Pharmacy library and Environmental sciences library altogether organized five courses of 15 hours each. 143 undergraduates attended the courses. 16 librarians of the University of Parma were involved as teachers.
CONCLUSIONS
Outcomes are positive. Undergraduates were able to achieve stronger abilities in using library and its resources; libraries gained larger visibility among university services.
Satisfaction about this activity was confirmed by responses to a questionnaire distributed to undergraduates at the end of each course. Questions concerned the place, the facilities and the contents of the course.
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