Internet versus live: Assessment of government documents bibliographic instruction

The issue of live bibliographic instruction (BI) versus electronic BI is a matter many libraries are facing as more technology becomes available to afford such an option. At the University of Oklahoma Government Documents Collection, a study was administered in March 2001 to determine the relative advantages between these two teaching techniques. Using three groups (live, Internet, and control), a pre- and posttest/evaluation were utilized to produce statistical results. In the end, both the live and Internet groups' posttests showed statistical significance when compared to the control group but showed no statistical significance when compared to each other. The evaluation and comment section of the posttest were enlightening, as live instruction was preferred over the Internet instruction in most instances. The final result of the study showed no statistical significance between the posttests of the live group and the Internet group, but the subjects preferred live government documents BI to the Internet version. This is important to note as more emphasis is being placed on the possibility of electronic BI for the future of library instruction.