Teach your colleagues well: the instructional role of the librarian

How would you teach someone to use a tool they’ve never used before? Would you send them a text-heavy document that explains what the tool is used for without showing them how to use it? Would you stand in front of them and demonstrate the tool, but not let them handle the item? Or would you let them get their hands dirty by putting them in a situation in which they’d have to use the tool to solve a particular problem?
As for me, I advocate the latter.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because part of my ongoing responsibilities at MPOW is to train library staff to use ExpressionEngine, the content management system that drives the library’s website. Training works well enough, but we definitely need to work in test scenarios that will help staff understand when to turn to a specific feature when they need to solve a particular problem.
I don’t know about other libraries (as this is the first one I’ve worked in as a professional, honest-to-goodness librarian), but many of our training materials are text based. I’d like to take the text-heavy documentation and transform it. Why not develop a podcast that people can listen to on their lunch hour, or while they’re taking transit to and from work? How about interactive screencasts that walk people through a typical search in a particular database, but that requires participant input?
(And while we’re at it, I’m going to ask for external access to staff resources and a pony.)
I ran across a message posted some time ago in the Library 2.0 community on Ning by a friend of mine. She was asking for input on what might be the best way to increase staff awareness of library 2.0 technologies, and ways to encourage staff to try to use the tools themselves. The PTB at her library asked her to send an e-mail to the staff that described the tools. Her email was very well written and informative but I couldn’t help thinking that she had missed a tremendous opportunity to teach by example.
Instead of telling people what Flickr is, she might’ve prepared a slideshow with annotations or an audio track that showed an example of how her library was using Flickr on their website. She might’ve linked to the Library of Congress’ collection on Flickr – but rather than linking to the individual images, why not link to the slide show that invites people to interact with the images?
Instead of a text-based tutorial, why not create a presentation deck and share it on Slideshare? It’s easy to look through research guides or pathfinders to identify a subject area that could benefit from a slide presentation that includes audio and video (and yes, text). It’s like the quote from the movie “Field of Dreams” – if you build it, they will come. If you show library staff how a particular tool might be used in a certain context, I believe they’ll understand the tool better and might be inclined to remember the particular tool when it comes time for them to develop content for library customers.
So the next time you’re presented with delivering instruction to your colleagues, take a moment to think of ways to deliver your content using the tool you’re discussing. Chances are good that you’ll learn just as much as the people you’re teaching.
(And yes, I realize the irony of using text to talk about this subject, but I’m at work, and all my cool tools are at home on my MacBook, not here with me at the office.)

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