With our expertise in search strategies and evaluation techniques, librarians are not only ideally suited to assume a leadership role in information technology; we are a valuable resource. Our teaching skills and adaptability to constant technological changes are earning us new respect and new allies. This article will discuss these changing roles and how we pursued them through programs we developed at Dowling College to teach World Wide Web training techniques.

Dowling College is a small liberal arts college on the south shore of Long Island, New York, with 6,000 graduate and undergraduate commuting, nontraditional students with an age range of 18 to 90. Founded in 1955, Dowling is a relatively young school with a small library and a heavy reliance on electronic resources.

Community Outreach Programs

Many teaching skills have to be developed to accomplish this task. First, for each new group we're asked to address, we naturally have to anticipate their mind-set—who they are and where they might be coming from intellectually and technologically. Secondly, we have to determine the content for sessions of differing lengths. Our solution has been to develop a universal manual with a few variable sections we can customize for each group. The essential components are: table of contents, Internet history, glossary, error messages, browser basics, bookmark organization and manipulation, printing and downloading, e-mailing, saving, search engines, evaluating, Internet resources, Internet tutorials, and local providers. The information comes from a variety of sources. We have written some of the materials ourselves, but they also come from print, documentation, browser help screens, tutorial glossaries, journal article tables, etc.

We start all our sessions with personal introductions, for several reasons: It's a good icebreaker, it helps participant networking, it clarifies what skill levels are present in the group, and it is a perfect lead-in to an overview of the class content.

We've learned some lessons from our teaching experiences. The first was to get over feeling that we had to be the "know all/teach all" experts in the classroom. Often we would be teaching very experienced Web searchers. Fighting our own insecurities, we remembered that for every Web workshop and demo we have attended, we have learned at least one rewarding trick. We have also found that reviewing material is a good thing, as many of us have gaps in our navigating knowledge since we've learned largely by trial and error. We've accumulated a list of tricks that brings at least one exclamation out of the crowd every time:

• Bookmarks: creating, organizing, "Set to Menu Folder," "Set to Bookmark Folder"
• Right-hand mouse button
• Print settings providing headers and footers: date, URL, page title, pagination
• "Go" and "History" toolbar buttons
• "Alt-Tabbing" to switch between programs
• How to stop when "Stop" doesn't work
• Setting options: Home page selection, printout orientation
• Basic keyboard commands: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+F

Campus Computer Literacy Programs

Our computer literacy sessions have been offered two or three times a year. The classes were promoted to faculty and staff. The attendees were, overwhelmingly, staff secretaries, with a handful of faculty. As we felt the faculty could benefit greatly from Internet instruction, we tried to attract them again by offering a faculty colloquium. The response was greater, as predicted. Faculty do need the privacy of their own peer group to learn. We are now applying the same principle to the administration and offering demonstrations to the President's Administrative Council and the Provost's Council.

In every class and demonstration, we offer individual follow-up instruction. We will go to the participant's office or provide telephone consultation. We remind everyone that each of our 15 librarians who staff the reference desk is an Internet expert and can assist researchers on our 13 Web-connected computers. We can't begin to tell you how our newly developed expertise has changed our self-confidence and improved the image of the library.

Library Instruction Programs

In our sessions, we review the functions and accessible gateways from our library catalog, demonstrate use of appropriate networked and Web-accessed databases, and introduce Internet searching on a particular subject. We give an overview of the browser, bookmarks, and search engines. We discuss effective search techniques, evaluative techniques, the importance of dated pages, the significance of ownership of a page, and what they should expect from the various domains, etc. We try to share any helpful hints or shortcuts that time will allow.

As the lab schedule becomes increasingly tight, we will not be able to conduct as many individualized classes. Therefore, we will be posting our former handouts on our library home page to create a self-help tutorial. We will encourage professors to incorporate some of this subject-specific orientation into their classes.

Staff Continuing Education Programs

How do we stay one step ahead? Basically, the full-time librarians receive the initial training and then provide in-service training for the part-time staff. The group presentation is then followed by one-on-one consultation with the full-time librarians during scheduled hours at the reference desk.

Redefining the Role of the Profession

• Image: These classes have given us a visibility that we did not have previously. The new emphasis on technology in the library has helped bring renewed respect to the role of librarians.
• Changed Environment: Some say that with the proliferation of electronic access, we are moving toward a paperless society where everything will be available over the Web. There is still the assumption that if it is not on the Internet, it simply does not exist or it is not significant. With that arrogance of ignorance comes the assumption that neither libraries nor librarians are necessary in this Technological Age—that people are self-sufficient and they can find everything themselves. Wrong!
  Now we know that is balderdash, but we must prove to the misguided and the mistaken that libraries and librarians are more necessary than ever. Who is more suited to take charge in the Information Age than the Information Professional? As skilled searchers, we are perfectly situated to do this instruction. We are trained to organize and analyze and retrieve information. We understand the principles of materials selection.
  Instead of being threatened by the proliferation of electronic information, we should be grateful that the Internet has given us a chance to reposition ourselves.
• Millennium Mandates: We must stay current. Our role as librarians has certainly changed and the job description is radically different from what it once was, but we must rise to the challenge. In this Information Age, when change is the only constant, everyone must be flexible. What an exciting opportunity we have!

Lessons Learned by Teaching Others

It's OK to make mistakes—we firmly believe that you learn much more by doing something wrong. When you do something right, you never analyze what you did. On the other hand, when you have totally messed up, you have to figure out just what you did wrong.

Remember that no one knows it all. Ask for help.

Fundamental library skills are as valuable now as ever. Materials still need to be organized, searched, and evaluated. The difference is that now you should not keep this expertise as a deep, dark secret for your use only. We are no longer gatekeepers of information—we are partners in its pursuit.