Beyond the library walls- estabishing an information literacy program for a dispersed user group

By Paul Verlander

The Information Services of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the UK government agency responsible for health and safety at work, has always endeavoured to educate its users.

The HSE employs some 4,100 staff dispersed across a network of 32 offices from a broad range of scientific and technical disciplines, as well as inspectors, policy makers and administrators. With such a large and diverse usergroup it is little surprise that most efforts at user education have been demand-led.

Staff of the service regularly provided support to users on sourcing appropriate information and using our online resources. Similarly, library induction sessions have always been available for staff.

However, such an approach tended only to cater for active users of the service and, given that efforts were based largely within the library, catered only for those staff based within our main headquarters. Read on ...

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