Institution:
Undergraduate Library
Helsinki

Address:
Undergraduate Library
Vuorikatu 7 (P.O. Box 53)
00014 University of Helsinki
phone +358-(0)9-1912 3920
fax +358-(0)9-1912 3956

Contact person:
Eija Nevalainen (Information retrieval training, Library tutorial project supervisor)
Tel. (09) 191 23940

 

The Undergraduate Library provides study materials needed in basic and intermediate studies on the City Campus of the University of Helsinki. The Library's services are lending, study facilities, information retrieval training, IT-services and guidance in library use.
The Library is open to the public.

User training
The Undergraduate Library organizes the following information searching training sessions open to all:

·     Information seeking training (in Finnish only)
      Target group: all University of Helsinki students
       Teaching language: Finnish

·      Helka in English - about 1 and half hours
Target group: all library users
Teaching language: English
The aim of the HELKA in English course is to give a general picture of HELKA, The Union Catalogue Database of the Libraries of the University of Helsinki. The participants learn how  to search books and information in the collections of Helsinki University Libraries.

Bes Besides open courses the Library organizes contact lessons for ICT Driving Licence -  information seeking module. 
These lessons are for new students of faculties of Arts, Behavioural Sciences and Theology.

Undegraduate Library’s tutorial

The virtual university projects of the Undergraduate Library
The Undergraduate Library has developed supporting services for the education and learning according to the strategy of the Virtual University of Helsinki.
The aims of the virtual university are:
·         the innovative application of the new information and communication technology
·         to strengthen the co-operation between the universities
·         to create functional learning environments and
·         the training of the ICT to students and teachers.
The Finnish Virtual University  now promotes online learning and teaching and develops information infrastructures.

The Undergraduate Library has been in charge of organizing the library services of the Learning Resources Centre.
The Aleksandria Learning Centre was completed and opened for public in 2003.

The Undergraduate Library further develops library and information services of Aleksandria.
The library services include:
·         the acquisition of electronic reserves and the copyright clearance
·         local and remote collections
·         instruction and information services
·         information skills courses and information retrieval training

One of the projects is Information Literacy.
It aims at:
·         implementing the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education,
·         providing a common basis for learning,
·         connecting with Academic Information Skills joint project co-operative planning of the educational programs.

See:
Sirkka-Liisa Korkeila, The virtual university projects of the Undergraduate Library – The Seminar on electronic course material on 24 October 2001.

The project “Standardizing the management of the information literacy 2001–2003” is the first major effort in Finland in this field. 
Its aim has been to translate the ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education into Finnish, these being published on the Internet during the year 2001.
The translation is freely available online. 
The project also arranged two working seminars and kept open the possibility of implementing these standards into the Finnish higher education curriculum.

More information about the development projects  are available only in Finnish.

Conference reports (2001-2005)  are freely available online (nearly all in Finnish).

Keywords: information searching - information seeking - information retrieval - training  for university students – training for library users - information searching training – user training - information retrieval training - use of scientific databases - information skills – information skills courses  – information literacy – information searches – library tutorial – – virtual university – library services – user services – learning environments - IL projects - ACRL's IL standards - higher education - higher education curriculum