Szegedi Tudományegyetem Klebelsberg Kuno Könyvtára
The SZTE Klebelsberg Library is the organiser of the Contemporary library and information skills course, therefore the electronic course material was also created by the staff of the Library.
Some thoughts on the purpose of the curriculum on library use in the 21st century and what can be expected from it.
The curriculum provides you with a range of tools to help you in your studies, to work through the course material, to prepare for exams and to complete written assignments, especially for the thesis.
Although some theoretical knowledge is covered, most of the course material is practical help for learning and navigating the academic literature. While the introduction to the SZTE Klebelsberg Library and its services is central to the curriculum, general knowledge is also provided that can be used in any similar university library environment. In this sense and as intended, our curriculum goes beyond the scope of Szeged.
The curriculum is designed for self-study: the reading lessons present a topic in a structured text format, while the video lessons are narrated presentations or tutorial videos.
The entire course is accompanied by a library glossary. This makes it easy to find the concepts and terminology used throughout the course material: these are also marked with an asterisk* in the reading lessons.
The content of the curriculum reflects the subjects:
It is worth saying a few words about the changes in the library environment as a whole.
It may surprise an outsider, or even the average library user or researcher, to hear that library science and library services (especially in higher education and research services) have recently undergone changes of unimaginable scale and scope. It is no exaggeration to say that all the essential parameters have changed. The IT revolution of the last 25-30 years has presented huge opportunities and challenges to the long-established library profession. In this curriculum, therefore, we also want to illustrate the paradigm shift – perhaps unusual in other professions in terms of scale and depth – that these changes have brought about. It is time to review the library portfolio because these changes have a fundamental impact on academic literacy, the methodology of scholarly work, the possibilities of studying for classes and the approach to written work.
What developments have led to this? One is the creation of the World Wide Web, in which libraries have become key players. The other is the spread of computer infrastructures in libraries, especially digitisation. Of course, it cannot be denied that these two phenomena have caused fundamental changes in other areas, but it is perhaps rare that something so radically transforms the life of a profession and its whole environment. When you enter a library today, this may not be obvious, so it is worth taking a closer look.
Perhaps the opposite of what former US Vice President Al Gore once thought – that the existence of the Internet would make libraries obsolete – is happening, as the knowledge and expertise available in classifying information, creating meta-information, retrieving and presenting data becomes more valuable than ever. Not to mention the dissemination of digital literacy skills, its workshops and schools.
Of course, as a library, the university library is on our minds at the moment. We have already mentioned the huge paradigm shift that libraries are undergoing.
But we are also witnessing another kind of change. For a very long time in the public library network, libraries have been open to certain community functions, e.g. author-reader events have always been part of their life. In a different way, but now it is also widespread in higher education: university libraries have also become more involved in community activities, and this means that new functions and new services have emerged.
Generation Z and subsequent generations have already been socialised in the age of the web and digital culture.
These are the generations that have grown up in today’s fully computerised and online paradigm, the children of „network and mobile technology”. For them, full network access and the use of mobile devices is a natural medium, and electronic access to literature, teaching and learning materials and their digital format is a matter of course. Modern education must meet these needs at the highest possible level to remain relevant. Paradoxically, it is also true that the higher and more conscious culture of gadget use in these age groups is often shallow, fashion-driven and not deep enough. Therefore, we share the view that there is a need to significantly improve the level of digital literacy of users, to increase their knowledge of network and digital infrastructure services, their skills in e-administration and their use of electronic content services. Many have said that without digital culture and networking, the man of the future could be illiterate and, it should be noted, terribly vulnerable. Narrowing these gaps is also one of the aims of this curriculum.
This is a huge responsibility for the different actors in education, including us. We need to respond very quickly to change. If the necessary knowledge is not distributed in an organised and well thought-out way, the level, spread and awareness of knowledge will be random and the future itself will slowly become unpredictable and uncontrollable.