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A considerable amount of work needs to be done when selecting new information technologies. From deciding which technology to use to dealing with the vendor's license agreement, a great deal of effort is expanded by library administrators. However, two important and crucial areas that are often overlooked are considering what outcomes a library wants from a new information technology and planning to introduce and teach library patrons how to use the new information resource. It is pointless to purchase an information technology unless it is used effectively by the patrons of a library. A variety of approaches can be taken when designing the curriculum of a library instruction program. Most of these approaches can be traced back to current pedagogical practices that are being advocated by the education profession. One current educational approach which has not received a lot of attention by librarians is outcome-based education (OBE). This approach is highly relevant to libraries planning on introducing new information technologies to patrons as it ties in closely to the goals of library instruction, and to a lesser degree, reference services.

Outcome-based education is a method of teaching that focuses on what students can actually do after they are taught. All curriculum and teaching decisions are made based on how best to facilitate the desired outcome. This leads to a planning process in reverse of traditional educational planning. The desired outcome is selected first and the curriculum is created to support the intended outcome. This fits library instruction very well in that librarians want students to have certain information seeking skills (such as the ability to use the online card catalog) as an outcome of library instruction. This paper will seek to help administrators and public service librarians use those portions of outcome-based education that could prove useful in the library during both the planning and teaching stages of a new information technology. As such, an examination of the literature addressing outcome-based education is important.

LITERATURE REVIEW

I will attempt to portray outcome-based education as it is taught by OBE practitioners. A recent definition of outcome-based education comes from James Towers. He wrote, "Education that is outcome-based is a learner-centered, results-oriented system founded on the belief that all individuals can learn" (p. 19). Towers listed four points to this system that are necessary to make it work. First, what the student is to learn must be clearly identified. Second, the student's progress is based on demonstrated achievement. Third, multiple instructional and assessment strategies need to be available to meet the needs of each student. And finally, adequate time and assistance need to be provided so that each student can reach the maximum potential (Towers, 1996).

Towers shows how slippery the definition of outcome-based education can be. He writes that OBE is learner centered. However, his explanation makes it clear that outcome-based education is in fact outcome centered. Towers intends to show that good outcomes are learner centered. However, it is possible to focus too much on the outcomes at the expense of the student. This is important for the librarian to remember. The librarian can focus on outcomes and not always be focusing on the needs of the library or patron. It is a good idea to choose outcomes that are learner centered because the emphasis of outcome-based education is outcomes.

The definition of outcomes is also very important to understanding this system of education. William Spady and Kit Marshall wrote (1994),

Outcomes are clear, observable demonstrations of student learning that occur after a significant set of learning experiences. They are not values, attitudes, feelings, beliefs, activities, assignments, goals, scores, grades, or averages, as many people believe. Typically, these demonstrations, or performances, reflect three things: (1) what the student knows; (2) what the student can actually do with what he or she knows; and (3) the student's confidence and motivation in carrying out the demonstration. A well-defined outcome will have clearly defined content or concepts and be demonstrated through a well-defined process beginning with a directive or request such as 'explain,' 'organize,' or 'produce.' (p. 20,21)

Spady and Marshall also wrote about two other important considerations with outcome-based education. They wrote that there must be a "clarity of focus" so that planners and teachers have a clear focus on what they want the students to be able to do successfully. Further, the curriculum must be constructed "design down" with the desired exit outcomes first and all instructional plans built from there (Spady and Marshall, 1994).

Another set of outcome-based education theorists are Floyd Boschee and Mark Baron. They defined outcomes as future oriented, publicly defined, learner-centered, focused on life skills and contexts; characterized by high expectations of and for all learners, and sources from which all other educational decisions flow. Further they defined learning as facilitated carefully toward achievement of the outcomes, characterized by its appropriateness to each learner's development level, and active and experienced-based (Boschee and Baron, 1994).

One problem that outcome-based education causes for educators is assessment. By it's very nature, outcome-based education eliminates traditional assessment tools such as tests or grades. Gail Furman addressed this topic by examining how outcome-based education caused problems in assessment. She wrote (1994),

Assessment issues arise, of course, from any use of outcome-based education. The central premise of OBE, as we have seen, is the alignment of outcomes, curriculum, and assessment. The OBE design process stipulates that assessments be developed after outcomes are defined and tailored to authentically assess the outcomes...Thus OBE implies that the educator must develop original, authentic, performance-based assessments linked to specific outcomes. This feature of OBE raises the specter of many thorny issues surrounding assessments in general, and performance assessment in particular. (p. 429,430)

Most of the literature on outcome-based education deals with elementary and secondary schools. However, Mary Webster wrote an article placing outcome-based education in a post-secondary setting. Webster taught marketing at a community college. Her outcome method required students to master material before they could move on to higher material. This often meant the student was forced to repeat tests or quizzes several times. Students were forced to work hard because a grade of "C" was not considered a sign of having mastered a competency. Webster found that this method has reduced the failure rate and at the same time increased student learning and retention (Webster, 1994).

Despite the fact that teaching library skills is traditionally one of the least grade-driven and most outcome-based curricular goals, the amount of literature connecting outcome-based education to librarianship has been sparse. Several articles have been written, however. Mary Anderson was one of the first to notice how outcome-based education was impacting librarianship. She noted that the increased interdisciplinary teaching that results from outcome-based education was forcing teachers to reconsider how they wanted to incorporate library skills into the curriculum and giving librarians more opportunities to interact with students (Anderson, 1993).

Deborah Kirk and Lynda Welborn wrote about how school systems in Colorado were being affected by outcome-based education. School library media centers were being required to formulate outcomes for information literacy. One consequence of this method of education was the integration of library skill sessions with regular classes. Kirk and Welborn wrote (1992),

One of the most significant implications of OBE for school library media programs is the change in the 'mode of teaching' from isolation to integration. We can no longer teach 'library skills' in isolation if we expect these skills to be used when they are needed. Skills taught in isolation are not likely to be transferred to other applications as easily as those skills taught in concert with a direct application. (p. 7)

OBE AND PLANNING FOR NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

How does all of this help in planning for new information technologies? There are two areas that outcome-based education can potentially help with before a system is acquired. First, an OBE approach can be used to determine if a system should be selected. Second, an OBE focus will allow administrators adequate time to consider how best their staff should plan to teach the new information technologies so that the desired patron outcomes will be achieved after the information technology is made available to the public.

Probably the most important consideration was written about by Spady and Marshall who wrote about the "design down" nature of the outcome-based education approach. Before any online system or database is selected by a library, the administration has to determine what outcomes the patrons should be having with the system. Why is this new information technology being acquired? Is the current system difficult and confusing for patrons? If so, does the library want a system that is easier to use so that patrons are more successful? In this case, one of the desired patron outcomes for a new information technology has been determined already. At this point, a catalog or database can be selected to fit this outcome.

Problems can develop if patron outcomes are not considered in the planning stages. For example, what if a library desires a new online system and forgets about what the system should be doing for patrons. Many libraries have selected online systems because the system was less expensive than other choices or because the technical services department liked the cataloging module. Both of these are important considerations. However, together these two reasons do not justify the purchase of a system that patrons have difficulty using. Despite what vendors claim, not all online systems are easy to use by patrons. If a difficult one is selected, patrons will not achieve the desired outcome of being able to find information on their own. The library will then be in the situation of having to make the curriculum their teaching in the classroom and at the reference desk fit what has already been selected. This will change the outcomes that are then desired. Instead of teaching for outcomes that emphasize mastery of a system, library staff will be teaching patrons how to "get by" with a difficult system.

Outcome-based education allows for planning in teaching a new information system. The wrong time to think about how a library curriculum should incorporate a new information technology is the week before a new information technology is introduced to the public. This needs to be addressed when a system is first being considered. After an information resources is selected, adequate staff and time can be used to determine how to teach the new technology. If the patron can not use the system effectively, the new technology is a failure. Accordingly, the library needs to prepare to teach the technology so that desired library outcomes can be achieved with the new technology.

OBE AND LIBRARY INSTRUCTION

Should libraries use outcome-based education in instruction? And if so, how much of it should be used? I think focusing on outcomes could be beneficial for librarians even if not all of the approach is used. Although library instruction is outcome-based education friendly, it is not always possible in the library environment to emphasize every point and consideration of OBE. Conversely though, most library instruction programs are already based in outcome-based education ideals even if the librarians have never heard of OBE. Finding a way to accent the outcome-based education principles that already exist in a library instruction program and also expanding them to include other elements of OBE is the curricular challenge facing greater incorporation and use of OBE theory in the library classroom.

The first area that must be addressed in an outcome-based education library curriculum is the decision about what it is the student is to learn. This is what Spady and Marshall referred to as the "clarity of focus." What does the librarian want the student to be able to do successfully? This can and should result in an active discussion among the librarians, support staff, and administrators of a library. It could be that the current instructional model in place did not actually teach those skills deemed most valuable to the library. This discussion should then lead to the most important determination the library educator will make. What are the desired outcomes of the instruction? Making and prioritizing a list of outcomes would probably prove helpful. Obviously, this determination of outcomes should be made before a new information technology is selected so that the selected technology conforms to the outcomes that the library has selected.

One area where outcomes could be addressed easily is citations in electronic indices. Every index follows a slightly different method of citing entries. However, by learning the basics of what constitutes a citation, the student should be able to read any citation regardless of where it is located. Some model outcomes here could include;

1. The student can identify the periodical in which an article is located from the citation.

2. The student can identify the title of an article from the citation.

3. The student can identify the author of an article from the citation.

4. The student can identify the page numbers on which an article is located on in a periodical from the citation.

5. The student can identify the date of the periodical that an article appears in from the citation.

1. The student understands what a listserv is.

2. The student can subscribe to a listserv.

3. The student can send a message to every individual on the listserv.

4. The student can unsubscribe to a listserv.

Spady and Marshall also discussed another important point that library educators must keep in mind. The curriculum must be "design down." The desired exit outcomes of the students must be agreed on first and then from there all the appropriate instructional plans can be designed. Outcome-based education will not work if the librarian simply takes the curriculum already in place and forces outcomes to fit that curriculum. The curriculum supports the outcomes and as such is designed after the outcomes. This is perhaps where outcome-based education could prove the most useful in improving library instruction. Academic librarians need to get past how they teach and focus more on what they want to happen when they teach and when the class is finished.

Kirk and Welborn made a good point when they discussed how outcome-based education was forcing educators to reconsider how they taught library skills. OBE was causing teachers more fully to integrate information literacy into other parts of the school curriculum. If the educator wants information literacy to be demonstrated in outcomes, then the student must be shown how these are practical and useful (Kirk and Welborn, 1992).

This idea of having library skills being tied to material being taught in other parts of the curriculum is an important and crucial point for academic librarians. Tom Eadie wrote that library skills were basically a need-to-know activity. Wrote Eadie (1990),

Instead of dealing with the same dumb question 20 times over, assemble a group of 20 students, raise your voice, and give them the answer. Of course they have yet to ask the question and there are disadvantages to addressing the unmotivated en masse. They may not listen carefully or remember what you said. (p. 44)

Rather than look upon library instruction as useless, outcome-based education requires the academic librarian to look at how library instruction is incorporated into the post-secondary institution-wide curriculum. Are library skills taught in tandem with the assignments that students have due for their courses? If not, why do we expect the student to appreciate and retain the information? How the information is immediately useful to the student should be pointed out.

To get the outcomes desired from students, academic librarians must get library instruction tied to the university curriculum. Academic librarians also must be selective as to when they teach. If a course does not have a specific assignment due that requires library work, then the librarian should not conduct library instruction in it. This means librarians should not waste time "baby sitting" the course of a professor who is away at a conference or a TA who needs a break from teaching because she has three papers due unless there is a good chance that the students will have real questions that can addressed so that the desired library learner outcomes can be achieved.

How does the academic librarian tie library instruction into the institutional curriculum? If librarians are fortunate enough to have representation on the faculty committees that approve new courses and that approve new institutional goals, then this is the starting point. If not, then librarians must meet with those who are on these committees. On an individual basis, the librarian can not use the same lesson plan over and over again. Many instructional librarians use the same basic canned instruction session repeatedly with only slight modifications being made for different courses and assignments. Making new plans each time a course is taught would allow the outcomes to be addressed each time in the best possible instructional way.

Public libraries can benefit from tying instruction efforts with local schools. Whenever a surprise mass assignment materializes at the reference desk, librarians can attempt to contact the responsible teacher and make plans to teach the new information technologies en masse the next time such an assignment is considered. When groups do come to the library, the librarian can make sure that instruction fits exactly the type of research members of the group will be conducting.

Another idea that outcome-based education requires is multiple instructional strategies. This may prove difficult for most libraries. Rarely does a librarian get more than one session with a group of patrons. In this time, only one or two instructional strategies can be pursued. This of course is not advantageous to students who have learning styles different from the instructional format. The time constraints of library instruction make this an extremely difficult area of outcome-based education for the library to incorporate.

The same is true for the outcome-based education doctrine of giving the student adequate time and assistance. This is not going to happen in a fifty minute instruction session. The best the librarian can do is inform the students about the reference desk and the user services that exist there. The librarian can also make it clear that the librarian is available for individual assistance by appointment. From there it is up to the student.

OBE AND REFERENCE SERVICE

Reference desk services and instructional activities can complement each other nicely. However, there can also be a conflict between the two. Outcome-based education can cause a conflict in philosophies that can be hard for the librarian to resolve. Any outcome-based education approach in library instruction is going to have to take into account reference service by necessity. Many of the librarians engaged in library instruction also work at a reference desk and have further interaction with the students they teach. The students will also come to the reference desk either out of necessity or because that was where they were told to go during the library instruction session for further assistance.

Tying outcome-based education to reference services raises a serious question that has been extensively addressed in the library literature. How much should the librarian do for the student? If learner outcomes are to be achieved, the answer is as little as possible. The librarian needs to act more as a teacher showing the student how to do the research rather than giving the student answers directly with little effort on the student's part. This conflicts with the views of the reference librarian as service driven rather than teaching driven.

William Katz is one of the librarians who hold that service should be the goal at the reference desk. Katz has come down strongly on the side of giving students answers at the reference desk rather than showing them how to do the research themselves. Considering bibliographic instruction from the individualized view at the reference desk, Katz wrote (1997),

Bibliographic instruction is incompatible with the concept of helping and solving problems for the individual. The reference librarian can do one or the other, at least consistently, but not both. To attempt to give answers to questions, to solve computer problems while insisting on teaching users to solve his or her own information and technical problems, is to confuse the client. Furthermore, it ultimately defeats the role of the library as an information resource. (p. 224)

Even if education is stressed over service, attempting to identify those patrons who have been taught in the classroom so that they can be treated differently at the reference desk would create different levels of service for different patrons and that would be unacceptable. It would be difficult to identify the patrons in the first place. Thus, an attempt to teach patrons how to look up information rather than give them the information would need to be applied to all patrons as often as possible for an outcome-based education approach to work.

It is probably impossible to address every reference interview from an outcome-based education approach. It is not practical to show every patron who asks a simple ready reference question how to use an almanac. It also is not possible to do so when there is a long line of patrons waiting for help at the reference desk. Applying outcome-based education at best can only be a selective activity that can be used when the reference desk is not busy and there is something significant to be taught to the patron. However, some effort must be made to bring reference service in line with the classroom if outcome-based education is incorporated into the library curriculum. Otherwise, one important educational function of the library may needlessly conflict with another.

CONCLUSIONS

There are many applications of outcome-based education for librarians dealing with new information technologies. Perhaps the most important OBE application in a library can be in the planning process. Before acquiring new information technologies, a library can take into account how a new catalog or databases can be taught. If a resources proves difficult to teach in the evaluation stage, perhaps it is best if another product is selected instead. If users can not achieve desired information outcomes easily with an information resource, then a library will be failing patrons by selecting it. Any information resource made available to the patrons of a library needs to be both beneficial to the library and patrons. An OBE approach in the planning stage can help determine if an information resource has failed in the latter.

Outcome-based education, because it fits library instruction so well, has a lot to offer the librarian. Concentrating on outcomes rather than grades, outcome-based education allows librarians to focus on teaching the skills that are most important to the library. By clearly focusing on what they want the patron to learn, and by creating observable outcomes to assess patrons by, librarians can make a curriculum that teaches the outcomes. This can lead to better library instruction by forcing librarians to reconsider what and how they teach and also lead to better incorporation of library skills into the post-secondary curriculum for the academic librarian. Not all aspects of outcome-based education can be addressed completely but reference service and individual appointments can help in those areas which library instruction can not adequately deal. Reference services in libraries using outcome-based education will have to reconsider how they can best complement the OBE approach even as they realize that full implementation is impractical. As outcome-based education is adopted by librarians, published reports of libraries that have taken this approach would certainly benefit the profession.

REFERENCES

Anderson, M.A. (1993). Outcome-based education & the librarian. The Book Report, 11 (March/April), 31.

Artis, J.B. (1994). The show-me approach. Vocational Education Journal, 60 (November/December), 26-29.

Boschee, F. and Baron, M.A. (1994). OBE: Some answers for the uninitiated. Clearing House, 67 (March/April), 193-96.

Eadie, T. (1990). Immodest proposals: User instruction for student does not work. Library Journal, 115 (October 15), 42-45.

Fitzpatrick, K.A. (1995). Leadership challenges of outcome-based education. Education Digest, 60 (January), 13-16.

Furman, G.C. (1994). Outcome-based education and accountability. Education and Urban Society, 26(4), 417-37.

Guskey, T.R. (1994). Defining the differences between outcome-based education and mastery learning. The School Administrator, 51 (September), 34-37.

Katz, W. (1997). Introduction to reference work, Volume II: Reference services and reference processes, seventh edition. New York: Mcgraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Kirk, D. and Welborn, L. (1992). The impact of outcome-based education and the library media program. Colorado Libraries, 18 (March), 5-9.

Schwarz, G. and Cavener, L.A. (1994). Outcome-based education and curriculum change: Advocacy, practice, and critique. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 9(4), 326-38.

Spady, W. and Marshall, K. (1994). Light, not heat, on OBE. The American School Board Journal, 181 (November), 29-33.

Towers, J.M. (1996). An elementary school principal's experience with implementing an outcome- based curriculum. Catalyst for Change, 25 (Winter), 19-23.

Webster, M. (1994). Try, try again. Vocational Education Journal, 60 (November/December), 30- 32.