Giraffe, a Computer Assisted Instruction Programme.

In 1989 a two year collaborative project, CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) & Humanities, was initiated between the Faculty of Arts and IBM Netherlands during which General Information Retrieval All Faculties For Bibliographic Education (GIRAFFE), a program for the retrieval of information on general bibliographies, was developed. The program, designed for use by students, employees of universities, and visitors to university libraries, is intended to inform users of bibliographic databases that might fulfill their information needs, and to give them insight into the organization of bibliographic databases and systems. The computer was found to be an efficient teaching device for the task of bibliographic information retrieval because of its ability to react to the immediate needs of the individual students, provide help and supplementary information, and act as an aid to any user interested in finding information in any bibliographic databases. (Contains 4 references.) (ALF) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Cal.ce or Educatioi a, Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER tERIC, ?his document nas been reproduced as received from the persC, or organization originating it r Mn,, i changes nave been made lc improve reproduction Quality Points of view or opinions stated in this dOCa meet Co not necessarily represent ofbc,a; GERI position or poliCy GIRAFFE, A COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION PROGRAMME Albert K. Boekhorst and Tineke Groot University of Amsterdam Faculty of Arts Dept. Book, Library and Information Science 'Access to Knowledge' means access to information. To have access one needs to know what information sources are available and how the information wanted can be retrieved. Information technology and its products are penetrating with increasing speed and a compulsory way into government, business, science and education but also into day-to-day life of the citizen. There is a growing amount of information, information sources, information media which is retrievable over a greater geographic area in a decreasing period of time by a growing number of people via several communication channels. For most people ordinary skills are not sufficient any more and instruction on information retrieval and information management is needed, even for day-to-day life (PINcodes). If we restrict ourselves to 'Scientific Information', information used by scientists, we see that information is retrieved via several information channels: oral, written (printed, or digital). Formalised (written) information plays a specific function in scientific communication. The vast body of formalised information is supposed to represent the universal body of knowledge. To be able to retrieve relevant information, students have to know how scientific communication in general and for the relevant branch of knowledge is organised. What information sources are available on what information media and via what communication channels. We gather that more and more students are poorly informed over the possibilities to find relevant information and lack the skill of an adequate use of information sources. Bibliographies form the most general group of reference material. Library instruction in general and instruction in information retrieval can vary from a global introduction to a series of instructions. Fiallbrant1 distinguishes several ways of instruction: