Know your audience; the information literacy (IL) levels of medical students arriving at Imperial College London Bethan Adams, 1 Richard Birley, 2 and Louisa Bentley. 3 1 Charing Cross and Chelsea and Westminster Campus Libraries, 2 Charing Cross Campus Library and 3 Royal Brompton Campus Library, Imperial College London Library. BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION ‘ The need to develop Skills in Information Technology and Information Literacy for a career in the Health Services is not in dispute’ (Oberpreiler et al, 2005 p595) METHOD The IL skills of approx. 300 new medical undergraduates are surveyed each year as they begin their IL training. The data is collected via an online survey with approx. 20 questions ranging from general questions about the resources students use to find information, to specific details about their understanding REFERENCES Oberprieler G, Masters K and Gibbs T (2005), Information technology and information literacy for first year health sciences students in South Africa: matching early and professional needs, Medical Teacher, 27(7) pp Ofsted (2006), Good school libraries: making a difference to learning, Available from : (accessed 11th July 2007). Whittle SR, Murdoch-Eaton DG (2004), Lifelong learning skills: how experienced are students when they enter medical school? Medical Teacher, 26(6) pp576-8 Increasingly, practice is evidence based and relies upon the ability to retrieve and analyse information from a range of sources. Whittle and Murdoch-Eaton (2004) also highlight a range of lifelong skills including information literacy (IL) as being essential to being an independent learner able to keep pace with changes in clinical practice. Imperial College Library also has a strategic goal to embed IL teaching into 80% of undergraduate teaching by In the Faculty of Medicine, this IL support is delivered to undergraduates via a blended learning approach of timetabled lectures, facilitated hands-on workshops, interactive seminars and self directed learning (underpinned by a VLE course “Olivia”). First year medical undergraduates receive four hours of timetabled, face-to-face IL training. of topics such as Boolean searching and referencing. Completion of the survey is incorporated into their first hands-on IL session, so feedback levels are high (e.g. 244 completed surveys in 2007). KEY FINDINGS A useful general indication of the students’ information skills is found in their response to the following three questions How would you describe your usual experience of finding study-related information? 2006/72007/8 Always find what I want: 22%43% Sometimes find what I want: 55%50% It’s difficult finding what I want:16%4% Never find what I want / don’t know where to look: 7%1% Which of these statements best describes your use of online library catalogues? 2006/72007/8 Never used an online library catalogue: 43%39% Sometimes use an online catalogue but find it easier to browse the shelves 21%27% Often used an online catalogue 23%26% Always use an online catalogue13%7% Have you ever used a bibliographic database? 2006/72007/8 Yes:5%10% No:91%55% Don’t know what one is:-33% CONCLUSIONS  When in the Library/Using Resources 77 (20%)  Essays/Assignments117 (30%)  Throughout the course/when researching194 (50%) Fig. 2. Student menu on Olivia Fig. 1. Medicine undergraduates at Imperial Increasingly, practice is evidence based and relies upon the ability to retrieve and analyse information from a range of sources. Whittle and Murdoch-Eaton (2004) also highlight a range of lifelong skills including information literacy (IL) as being essential to being an independent learner able to keep pace with changes in clinical practice. Imperial College Library also has a strategic goal to embed IL teaching into 80% of undergraduate teaching by In the Faculty of Medicine, this IL support is delivered to undergraduates via a blended learning approach of timetabled lectures, facilitated hands-on workshops, interactive seminars and self directed learning (underpinned by a VLE course “Olivia”). First year medical undergraduates receive four hours of timetabled, face-to-face IL training. METHOD The IL skills of approx. 300 new medical undergraduates are surveyed each year as they begin their IL training. The data is collected via an online survey with approx. 20 questions ranging from general questions about the resources students use to find information, to specific details about their understanding of topics such as Boolean searching and referencing. Completion of the survey is incorporated into their first hands-on IL session, so feedback levels are high (e.g. 244 completed surveys in 2007). KEY FINDINGS A useful general indication of the students’ information skills is found in their response to the following three questions How would you describe your usual experience of finding study-related information? Which of these statements best describes your use of online library catalogues? 2006/72007/8 Never used an online library catalogue: 43%39% Sometimes use an online catalogue but find it easier to browse the shelves 21%27% Often used an online catalogue 23%26% Always use an online catalogue13%7% Other findings : A significant number of respondents did not know about Boolean searching. Questions prompting students on issues relating to the use of internet sources showed that there was some awareness of issues of reliability and validity. However, it is hard to say how this would apply in practice to their online search behaviour, as Wikipedia as a resource was found to be more popular than textbooks as a source of information. BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION ‘ The need to develop Skills in Information Technology and Information Literacy for a career in the Health Services is not in dispute’ (Oberpreiler et al, 2005 p595) BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION ‘ The need to develop Skills in Information Technology and Information Literacy for a career in the Health Services is not in dispute’ (Oberpreiler et al, 2005 p595) The pre-course survey has offered library staff an insight into the IL skills of the 2006 and 2007 cohorts of students. These results, along with post course evaluation continue to inform the content of IL sessions. However, it also provides an interesting comparison with the findings reported by Whittle and Eaton (2004) about students arriving to study medicine at Leeds University in Their survey highlighted students’ inexperience of “library skills” (p577). They suggested that this situation may be seen to improve with changes in the school curricula. However, six years later, this has not been the experience at Imperial College. This experience is echoed in the Good School Libraries Report (2006) from Ofsted which reported that in general there are too few opportunities for pupils to carry out a search or work independently to prepare them for further education or the workplace. Finally, the Leeds study, did not consider the impact of any IL intervention. At Imperial, 87% of undergraduate medics described the library training as good or better. In addition, when asked, ‘Where do you think you could apply what you have learnt today?’, their understanding of IL has shown development as evidenced below. Whittle SR, Murdoch-Eaton DG (2004), Lifelong learning skills: how experienced are students when they enter medical school? Medical Teacher, 26(6) pp576-8 The pre-course survey has offered library staff an insight into the IL skills of the 2006 and 2007 cohorts of students. These results, along with post course evaluation continue to inform the content of IL sessions. However, it also provides an interesting comparison with the findings reported by Whittle and Eaton (2004) about students arriving to study medicine at Leeds University in Their survey highlighted students’ inexperience of “library skills” (p577). They suggested that this situation may be seen to improve with changes in the school curricula. However, six years later, this has not been the experience at Imperial College. This experience is echoed in the Good School Libraries Report (2006) from Ofsted which reported that in general there are too few opportunities for pupils to carry out a search or work independently to prepare them for further education or the workplace. Finally, the Leeds study, did not consider the impact of any IL intervention. At Imperial, 87% of undergraduate medics described the library training as good or better. In addition, when asked, ‘Where do you think you could apply what you have learnt today?’, their understanding of IL has shown development as evidenced below.