Guidelines for User Education in Bishop Stuart University Library
Abstract
The study aimed at developing a library user education guideline for Bishop Stuart University Library. The objectives of the study were to; establish the current status of the library user education at Bishop Stuart University, find out how the library user education at Bishop Stuart University is managed, identify the challenges of library user education at Bishop Stuart University and come up with the best practices in the library user education for Bishop Stuart University.
The study employed a case study research design. Interviews, questionnaires and observation guides were used to collect data from the respondents. Convenience sampling method was used to select 82 students and purposive sampling to select 4 librarians who participated in the study.
The study established that Library user education is currently practiced and helps users to improve on the love for books, enjoy using library resources and services, turned users into regular library users and being able to identify/use reference bks. The methods for offering library user education were; library orientation for new students, guided library tour, basic bibliographic instruction, and one-on-one library use instruction.
The challenges faced in library user education were; failure to locate information materials, misuse of library holdings, bleaching library rules and time wastage. The suggestions for improving library user education at Bishop Stuart University were; developing library user guide, an orientation program, instructions on how to use the library holdings, setting up rules and regulations and literature search training.
The study recommended that library staff at Bishop Stuart University should implement the proposed Library User education guideline so as to improve on utilisation of resources and services at Bishop Stuart University Library.