The Current Environment of E-learning Development for Information Literacy Instruction by Hospital Librarians

Librarians are experts in information literacy (IL) and hospital librarians are often available to provide in-person instruction or one-on-one training on topics related to evidence-based medicine (EBM; commonly interchangeable with evidence-based practice) and searching for the best available research evidence. This instruction often covers topics such as developing a search strategy, searching specific databases, critical appraisal, and conducting systematic reviews. E-learning is a convenient and efficient way to provide instruction to library users (i.e., hospital staff) who may work at multiple sites or work off shift, as it is accessible 24/7, it can be created in a variety of different media or formats to appeal to different kinds of learners, and it allows learners to be selfdirected in identifying the instruction that they need. It can also be time consuming to create; it often requires purchasing e-learning authoring software, and there is a learning curve required of staff who design and build e-learning objects. The purpose of this study is to determine the scope of e-learning being carried out by hospital librarians, including the topics they are covering and the methods that they are using, and to identify if there are challenges that prevent hospital librarians from using e-learning to teach IL to users. The research questions are (1): are hospital librarians using e-learning to teach IL and/and (2) what e-learning methods are they using?