A Self-Study Approach to Reference Sources

Abstract

ONE OF THE PROBLEMS facing most teachers of library school reference courses is that of assisting the student to become familiar with some basic reference sources which he may need to use on the job; to do so in such a way that he can also be aware of, examine, and make use of hundreds of other not so basic reference sources; to do this without unduly boring or antagonizing the student, and without infringing upon time needed for learning other important aspects of the field of reference service. This problem has been dealt with in various ways, the most traditional of which is the presentation and discussion of these sources in the classroom at the expense of other material which could also be discussed profitably in the class. Faced with this problem at the Graduate School of Library Studies at the University of Hawaii, we decided to explore the possibility of using a programmed instruction or self -study approach to cover necessary material on specific basic reference sources. The student could then use this approach for directed self-study outside of class, thus freeing class time for other matters or simply cutting down on the amount of class time required. Since no such programmed or self -study text for reference existed, we had first to develop such a text, then to test it against the traditional method to determine whether the use of such a text would be at least as effective as the use of in-class time to cover the material. The original impetus for the idea came from Ralph R. Shaw, Dean