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Information literacy education in WeChat environment at academic libraries in China
The Journal of Academic Librarianship xxx (xxxx) xxxx
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Information literacy education in WeChat environment at academic libraries in China Jinchi Guo, Jie Huang
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East China Normal University Library, Shanghai, China Pennsylvania State University Libraries, PA, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Mobile information literacy University library WeChat
This paper investigates the practice of information literacy education in the mobile environment in China. The research chose 39 university libraries of Project 985 as the objects of study, and especially focused on the practice of the East China Normal University Library for in-depth discussions. The data and examples were collected through surveys on both Internet and mobile Internet from September 1, 2016 to March 31, 2019. Based on the discussion of survey results and specific examination of practice of information literacy education through WeChat at the East China Normal University, this paper offers some experience, feasible strategies, and suggestions on how to improve the mobile information literacy education by using WeChat platform.
Introduction Mobile Internet has quickly become the main approach to surfing the Internet in China, and has subtly changed peoples' learning methods and their daily life. According to the 43rd China Statistical Report on Internet Development published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in February 2019, there were 829 million citizens in China using Internet prior to the end of 2018. It composed 59.6% of the whole population. Among these users, 827 million citizens using cell phones to connect to the Internet. It made the mobile Internet the dominant way in the society (The 43rd China Statistical Report, 2019). In the meantime, the number of users of the popular social media platform app WeChat has seen rapid increase in China. In March 2019, the Chinese high technology company Tencent, which developed the mobile cross-platform instant messaging service, WeChat, in 2011 (Statista, 2016), also released the latest report on its performance in the fourth quarter of 2018. The report showed that the monthly WeChat, a social media platform, active users have reached 1.098 billion at the end of the quarter. Last year, WeChat further increased the penetration rate of low-tier cities and covered a wider range of user ages. On average, more than 750 million WeChat users read the posts of “Friends Circles” every day. Meanwhile, Enterprise WeChat is also rapidly spreading among large enterprises. About 80% of China's top 500 companies have become registered users of Enterprise WeChat (Tencent, 2019). Since WeChat can be downloaded and used for free, plus its powerful “apps within an app” model, a big population in China
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uses it to create personal accounts for chatting with friends both individually or as a group, sharing video or audio information, pictures, etc., or exchanging comments and thoughts. It also allows governments, businesses, and universities to create their public official accounts for daily work and outreach, etc. (Huang & Guo, 2017; Incitez China, 2016). While WeChat kept improving and adding more and more features and functions to cover almost every aspect of people's daily life, not only personal and enterprise usages increased sharply over years, academic libraries in China also started adopting WeChat into their information services with great enthusiasm after Tencent launched its WeChat public platform in August 2012. In that same year, the Beijing Normal University Library and the Beihang University Library were the first among academic libraries to put this social media to use. They both created their WeChat public accounts and sent out the first messages in November 2012. More and more academic libraries followed suit by establishing WeChat public accounts based on the Tencent's platform. Since WeChat has both mobile instant messaging and social media functions, it provides a new approach to teaching information literacy (IL) on the WeChat platform at academic libraries. This paper investigates the IL education through WeChat at the Project 985 university libraries in China based on the surveys through the Internet and mobile Internet, especially focusing on the practice of mobile IL education at the library of East China Normal University (ECNU). Project 985, officially launched in 1998, is a project that attempts to promote the development and reputation of some top universities in China to the world-class level. In its first phase, only 9
Corresponding author at: Cataloging and Metadata Services Department, Paterno Library, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Huang).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102073 Received 30 April 2019; Received in revised form 26 August 2019; Accepted 11 September 2019 0099-1333/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Jinchi Guo and Jie Huang, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102073
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actively participating in the new mobile IL as well. Many of them have taken the advantage of WeChat and applied it into their IL education. Some librarians did research and case studies on how to better teach IL in the WeChat environment. Some librarians proposed to use WeChat to establish an information sharing and learning network (Huang, He, & Ye, 2013). Others suggested that libraries could improve the dissemination effect of graphic information through WeChat by selecting its appropriate types of public accounts and setting up dissemination templates. It could also strengthen the role of WeChat dissemination templates in the IL education (Tian & Ye, 2017). Some case studies and surveys were carried out on practices and current situation of IL education at academic libraries in China (Chen, 2017; Sun, 2016; Xu, 2015). Our survey showed that, among all academic libraries in China, the key academic libraries at the Project 985 universities have been taking the leadership in the improvement of the social media WeChat platform to teach IL.
universities and institutes were selected. Later on, the project was expanded and developed into its second phase. 39 universities were sponsored as the Project 985 universities including ECNU. Both central and local governments provide these universities with guidance and support. Governments and enterprises work together to raise extra funding for them (Huang & Guo, 2017). The present study aims to examine the practice of IL education through WeChat at ECNU in order to propose some strategies feasible for implementation at academic libraries in general. Literature review As our society and people's daily life depend more and more on knowledge and information, the abilities to successfully find and utilize them so as to meet one's needs become more and more important. The IL education plays a crucial role in helping people develop such abilities because many of them, including students, still need guidance and assistance when choosing resources or evaluating websites and apps in the mobile environment (Yarmey, 2011). The concept of IL was first used by Paul Zurkowski, the president of the Information Industry Association (IIA), in 1974. It evolved and expanded in the past decades to accommodate the growing requirements for finding, evaluating, and using the information effectively and efficiently (Behrens, 1994; Walsh, 2012). In 2017, Encheva and co-authors summarized several common characteristics of IL in their article, although their definition can be modified slightly differently nowadays. The IL mainly includes defining the information needs, finding the effective way to search and possess the information needed, evaluating the information found, and using the information to achieve goals, etc. (Encheva, Zlatkova, Keskin, & Vatansever, 2017). In today's digital world, the ever changing and highly developed technologies have dramatically altered the approach to searching information and the learning environment in our society. The ownership of internet-capable mobile devices increased significantly. The popularity of mobile technology at colleges and universities worldwide has impacted higher education greatly and caused educators to incorporate the technology in their teaching and education (Havelka, 2013; Rossing, Miller, Cecil, & Stamper, 2012). Academic libraries are no exception. With the application of various technologies in the library and information science field, not only some new terms, such as “digital information literacy” and “mobile information literacy,” have emerged, but they also lead to new methods for teaching IL at libraries. Many librarians recognized these changes and tried to adapt to this growing trend (Godwin, 2009; Havelka, 2013; Manso Rodriguez & Machado Rivero, 2016). Havelka and Verbovetskaya (2012) pointed out that librarians should evaluate apps and mobile sites available on the market and recommend the best authoritative ones to users. Meanwhile, the mobile IL skills need to be taught and embedded into standard instruction classes (Havelka & Verbovetskaya, 2012). Constructing a new digital and IL framework to give users more relevant curricula and training becomes an important task for libraries (Clark, Coward, Rothschild, Reynal, & Richter, 2017). Walsh (2012) summarized the variation between fixed IL and mobile IL based on the existing literature in his article and identified six significant aspects of information engagement on the move from his study. In their research, Walsh and Godwin (2012) discussed how people's search through mobile device changed the way of discovering, evaluating, and re-using information. They emphasized that libraries need to focus on changes from IL to mobile IL. In their conclusion, new models for mobile information literacy were proposed (Walsh & Godwin, 2012). A number of libraries around the world advocate and facilitate teaching IL through mobile technology and e-learning platforms (Encheva et al., 2017; Godwin, 2009; Hanbidge, Sanderson, & Tin, 2015; Hanbidge, Tin, & Sanderson, 2018; Havelka, 2013; Johnston and Marsh, 2014; Lawal & Akintunde, 2014). Some libraries have developed their own IL mobile apps to assist students in their performance of information retrieval tasks (Mullins, 2017). Academic libraries in China have been
Research objects and methodology Since the launch of the WeChat public platform in August 2012, its functions have been increasing. Many university libraries have been making various attempts to explore the use of the WeChat public platform in a more in-depth manner, providing timely information and services and building a comprehensive, systematic custom menu beyond the initial push of news and announcements. This research intends to study the following issues: (1) Which 985 universities use the WeChat platform for IL education? (2) How effective is the use of information push and custom menus in IL education of the WeChat platform? (3) What are the main methods of IL education on the WeChat platform? (4) Which type of campus activities makes the best use of the WeChat platform? (5) To what extent do students make use of IL education on the WeChat platform? This study consists of two parts. In the first part, all 39 university libraries in the Project 985 were surveyed; in the second part, more data were collected particularly from the East China Normal University Library for further in-depth analysis and discussion. The study used the Internet and mobile Internet to collect the data on IL education using the WeChat public accounts at the 985 university libraries, and then analyzed them in different categories. The data collection started on September 1, 2016 and ended on March 31, 2019. The steps are as below: 1. Looked for WeChat public accounts of the 985 university libraries on the WeChat public platform. Became a “follower” once one was found. 2. Searched promotion information about mobile IL on all official websites of the 985 University Libraries to add the WeChat public accounts not found on mobile Internet. Confirmed the accounts which had already been found. 3. Checked the information released or published on those WeChat public accounts, starting on September 1, 2016, and collected data until March 31, 2019. 4. Continued to look for newly added WeChat public accounts of the 985 university libraries every semester. Continued to search information about the opening of the WeChat public accounts on the official sites of those 985 university libraries which had not opened one yet. Added any new account found to the “pay attention” list and followed it. 5. Checked the new “dissemination information” of those WeChat public accounts every week, tracking and recording the information related to IL. 2
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University Library, the Xiamen University Library, and the East China Normal University Library used freshmen column to deliver detailed user manual with photos and videos. The videos posted by the Beijing Normal University Library on the column were from 2009 to 2016. The freshmen column set up by 4 libraries, namely, Sun Yat-Sen University Library, Central South University Library, Harbin Institute of Technology Library, and Ocean University of China Library, allowed only freshmen at the universities to log in and use it. Teaching IL through WeChat platform should make full use of the characteristics and advantages the platform offers. It will be more beneficial to students when libraries employ both means of posting information on the accounts and setting up a column for each special topic on self-defined menus. Regularly posting information in the libraries' accounts reminds students frequently about the importance of IL and helps them develop a habit of learning IL. Setting up fixed columns on self-defined menu gives students the flexibility to learn IL at any time whenever they can and encourage them to take their initiatives to become active learners. In the orientation season at the East China Normal University Library, the “Column for Freshmen” is set up as a first-level menu on its WeChat platform to help freshmen quickly familiarize themselves with the library. At normal times, the “Beginners' Guide” is set up as a second-level sub-menu under the first-level menu “Introduction to the Library.” This column is also posted on the library's official website simultaneously. “Beginners' Guide” mainly includes “Library Exploration,” “Videos for Freshmen,” “Training and Courses,” “E-book Borrowing,” “FAQs,” “My ECNU Library,” etc. Under each column, there were sub-columns. For example, there were three main sub-columns under the column “Training and Courses.” They were “First Lesson for Using Library's Resources,” “Series Lectures on Information Literacy,” “Courses for Undergraduate/Graduate (total of nine courses).” The contents, which consist of detailed text with illustrations and micro videos, were straightforward and easy to understand. To attract more students' attention, the description written in the text was vivid and humorous. Videos were fun to watch. The library posts relevant information regularly.
6. Viewed the customized menus, various functions, and improvements of those WeChat public accounts every month. Findings In China, the main forms of IL education at academic libraries are: courses, lectures, freshmen training, and campus activities. The data collected for this study were categorized into these forms around the general situation. (1) General situation In the mobile environment, many users have formed the habit of having smart phones with them all the time and using them for checking information and reading. The 985 university libraries in China aim at the objective “wherever users are, wherever library services are.” The services these libraries provide closely follow the changes of users' information searching behavior and focus more on mobile aspect. All 39,985 university libraries have mobile library apps and opened library's WeChat public accounts now. Among them, 34 libraries (87.2%) have posted IL course information on WeChat accounts or set up a column related to an IL course in the self-defined menu of WeChat. Students feel they have benefited from the IL information posted on libraries' WeChat accounts. According to the survey of 433 students at the East China Normal University, 70.21% of students surveyed hoped their library to set up the IL related columns on the library's WeChat public account so that they could enhance their IL knowledge in a convenient way. (2) Freshmen training Among all 39 Project 985 university libraries, 31 libraries (79.5%) posted freshmen training information (see Table 1), of which 10 libraries (25.6%) posted freshmen training announcements, 17 libraries (43.6%) posted comprehensive information including photos, 7 libraries (17.9%) posted micro videos. Also, 6 libraries (15.4%) posted video games related to library's knowledge, and 11 libraries (28.2%) sent out self-test questionnaires. Since more and more librarians know how to better use self-defined menus after the WeChat had been used for years, more libraries started using those menus to disseminate their information and do the reach-out. The advantages of using self-defined menus are that they provide simpler, more logic, and more effective ways for users to browse information intuitively through the key information portal in the public account, and at the same time, save librarians' time spent on sending out information. Due to the effectiveness and efficiency of using self-defined menus, now 18,985 libraries (46.2%) had set up the “Freshmen Column” on the self-defined menus of their WeChat public accounts (during the freshmen-welcoming period, 18 libraries had the “Freshmen Column, then 10 libraries kept it as a regular column”). Through these freshmen columns on self-defined menus, 2.6% posted freshmen training announcements, 41% posted comprehensive information including photos, 23.1% posted micro videos, 12.8% provided video games related to libraries' knowledge, 20.5% posted self-test questionnaires (see Table 2). Peking University Library and Southeast University Library even put the column on the first level of the menu to emphasize and highlight its importance so that freshmen would pay more attention to the column when they use the WeChat. The Tsinghua University Library, the Beijing Normal
(3) Courses IL Courses taught at Project 985 university libraries usually include required and elective IL general education courses, and IL instruction embedded in other courses for undergraduate and graduate students. Most of those courses use the title called information literacy, information retrieval and utilization, document retrieval, and so on. The data collected from all 39 university libraries showed that the Peking University Library has posted its IL courses information in the “Freshmen Column” on the first-level menu of its WeChat account. The Northeast University Library provided the introduction on IL courses in the column called “Wei Tu Xue Tang (Micro-library Classroom)” on the second-level menu of WeChat. Fudan University Library and the University of Science and Technology of China both posted the information about elective IL courses on their WeChat accounts. But so far, all 39 university libraries which have WeChat public accounts have not set up the column about IL courses on their WeChat accounts. More efforts need to be made by these libraries and librarians. Besides regular courses, there is another type of course called “Micro Course.” Micro course as a new teaching method has been applied to the IL education. Wuhan University Library launched its online
Table 1 Freshmen training at 985 university libraries. Methods of posting
Announcement
Detailed text with illustrations
Micro video
Video games
Self-test questionnaire
Posting in public account Self-defined menu
25.6% 2.6%
43.6% 41.0%
17.9% 23.1%
15.4% 12.8%
28.2% 20.5%
3
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Table 2 IL lectures at 985 university libraries. Methods of posting
Announcement
Detailed text with illustrations
Micro video
Posting in public account Self-defined menu
92.3% 35.9%
12.8% 5.1%
10.3% 2.6%
micro course “Xiaobu Wei Ke (Xiaobu micro course),” which included 30 micro videos on IL, searching resources, library services, academic ethics, etc. This course was posted on the library's WeChat public account. It was also listed on the self-defined menu of WeChat to help users find the course quickly. The Beijing Normal University Library's micro courses contained several chapters: resources, services, methods, and subjects. With sub-divided points of knowledge and short videos, these courses dynamically presented the library's rich resources, its professional services, information retrieval and how to utilize information management tools, etc. One course was posted each week on the library's WeChat account. The IL courses offered by the East China Normal University Library were put in the column “Library Training and Courses” on the secondlevel sub-menu under the column “Introduction to the Library” on the first-level menu of the library's WeChat account. Meanwhile, the courses information was linked directly to the library's official website. The information on both WeChat account and the official website was updated at the same time. The information on IL courses was promoted and distributed to all freshmen through official WeChat and website when they started their first semester. Students were strongly encouraged to take IL courses. At the beginning of 2013, the graduate elective IL course at the university library started to include teaching the content on mobile information. In each semester, a WeChat group was built for students taking the class. Students learned how to search and retrieve information from the WeChat platform, such as the library WeChat public account, and how to share information with others in the WeChat group. It aroused students' strong interest in exploring the library WeChat account for information and knowledge. In addition to communication and sharing among students, and between librarians and students, the WeChat group also offered a convenient platform on which students could ask questions and get timely guidance and assistance from librarians. When one student asked questions, the whole class could see the assistance and answers from the librarian and benefit from them.
departments of the university. In 2016, the library posted the series “Quick Review for Subject E-resources,” and the main points and contents of other lectures, such as Database of Commonly Used Chinese Journals, Chinese Dissertation Database, and Resources on Education. The library also posted the series called “‘How-to’ Lecture Hall” in 2017. Each post of the series sent out one micro video and introduced one topic. Additionally, this series was displayed on the “Library's Column” of the university's Enterprise WeChat account. The library plans to collect some lectures with detailed text and illustrations and put them in the column “Library Training and Courses” on WeChat second-level sub-menu after a period of accumulation. (5) Campus activities Campus activities are generally IL contests, quizzes, self-tests, etc. Among all 985 university libraries, 10 have posted information about campus activities related to IL on their accounts. Peking University Library's “Talent Competition on Searching Information” includes pre-contest training, online preliminary contests, and live finals. Jilin University Library and Shandong University Library have adopted online quizzes to their IL competitions. The Tsinghua University Library and The Xiamen University Library included the freshmen general self-tests in the “Freshmen Column” at the secondlevel sub-menu on their WeChat accounts. The East China Normal University Library shows its campus activities related to IL in the same column as the IL courses. The library had carried out a variety of IL related activities on its WeChat public account. Every April in the past few years, the library held the “Library Books Fair” and “Information Literacy Talent Competition.” The competition was divided into three rounds of preliminary, semi-final and final. The library sent out messages about IL lecture series and workshops provided by other departments and colleges along the information on IL related activities. The library developed the WeChat quiz system during the freshmen-welcome period in the 2015. Freshmen took the self-test quiz on WeChat to evaluate their own knowledge about the library. The number of freshmen participating in the quiz through WeChat was over ten times more than the number taking the traditional web version. The easier way for taking the quiz encouraged freshmen to take the first step toward IL education. The significant increase of participants drove up the growth of fans of the library's WeChat public account. The number of fans increased by 62% from one year before. The 10,000th fan joined the group during the freshmen orientation in the 2016. The steadily growing number of fans has brought over more audience of the IL education on the library's WeChat platform.
(4) Lectures Lectures held at these university libraries have different types and lengths, such as one-hour library lecture series, special-topic lectures, and lectures on using special databases. So far, 36 out of 39 Project 985 university libraries (92.3%) posted information about IL lectures on their WeChat accounts. Among them, 92.3% posted announcements; 12.8% also posted detailed information with pictures about lectures; 10.3% even posted micro videos about lectures. By the end of March 2019, 13 university libraries (36.1%) had set up columns on lecture announcements in the sub-menu at the second level in their WeChat public accounts; 35.9% libraries had posted announcements in their columns; 5.1% had posted the information with both detailed text and pictures; 2.6% had provided videos for the lectures. Huazhong University of Science and Technology Library posted micro-lectures which consisted 26 articles published on WeChat. On the East China Normal University Library's WeChat public platform, the announcement about its lectures was posted in the column “Library Training and Courses” at the second-level sub-menu. The link was connected with the library's official website so that both platforms could be updated at the same time. The training part mainly includes weekly announcement for every Wednesday's IL series of lectures and lectures on which the library collaborated with other
Discussion and suggestion In today's mobile environment, the application of the WeChat platform has injected new vitality into the university library. Traditional IL education can no longer meet the information needs and searching behavior of mobile users. Academic libraries need to further explore and improve IL education based on the WeChat platform. In light of this study, some discussion and suggestions are made below. 1. WeChat platform becomes the main way of mobile IL education 87.2% of 985 university libraries use WeChat platform for IL 4
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The WeChat public accounts of the 985 university libraries have accumulated a certain number of student fans, but articles posted by the libraries on their WeChat accounts have not attracted enough attention from students and the number of readings is not high (Huang & Guo, 2017). How can IL education attract more students' attention in an information-explosion era? The key is better understanding the needs of students and their searching behavior. IL education in the mobile environment is not just about educating students what to learn, but also teach students what they need to learn. For example, the Tsinghua University Library includes a micro survey in “Freshmen Column” on the second level sub-menu, and in the welcoming message. Librarians can also use the data from surveys to personalize IL education. IL can be carried out for students with different needs. For instance, if the WeChat custom menu is set up according to the needs of different groups of students, then they can view different WeChat menus. Also, different subjects of information can be sent to students enrolled in different programs so that they can receive information most relevant to their interests and needs.
education. University libraries in China have abandoned the development of library APPs on their own or cooperation with manufacturers to develop them because the WeChat platform has become the main way of mobile IL education. Two main reasons lead to this phenomenon. First, the number of WeChat users has rapidly increased in a relative short period, and has now reached 963 million. College students have developed a habit of using WeChat for checking information. Therefore, WeChat has become an important tool of IL education so that students can study IL wherever and whenever they want to. Second, the WeChat platform has added more and more functions to achieve whatever library APPs provide. The operation of the WeChat public account is not technically demanding for libraries. It reduces libraries' spending on technical, labor and other costs for mobile IL education. 2. Establishing IL columns to better utilizing WeChat features With the improvement of WeChat public platform, the IL education at university libraries has evolved accordingly. From initially posting information only to providing IL, freshmen training, lectures, courses and campus activities, etc., more and more university libraries utilize custom menus to set up special columns on the WeChat so that they can take advantages of both information posting and custom menus to better serve students. The custom menu allows libraries to organize the information in a more comprehensive, systematic and logic way. Students can learn IL and other information on the menus anytime and anywhere. At the same time, the feature of information posting also shows its advantage. It has fixed columns which can continuously post relevant graphic information or video in a timely manner. It is helpful for reminding and stimulating students' attention so that students develop a habit of receiving and reading relevant information on WeChat.
6. Strengthening interaction with students IL education is not just a course that a teacher teaches and students learn. It should be based on an open, interactive and exploratory educational model. As to WeChat, it is not only a channel for posting information, but also an interactive platform. Libraries should make full use of WeChat for more effective and instant interaction, e.g., organizing IL contests, prize-winning activities of questions and answers, etc. Libraries should encourage students to register and participate in such events through WeChat. The East China Normal University Library conducted a series of lectures on IL and on special topics related to different programs before the “Information Literacy Competence Competition.” The Peking University Library gave students the precontest training before the “Talent on Information-Searching Competition.” This study demonstrates that social media platform WeChat has been applied to IL education at many top university libraries in China. It gives libraries and librarians a means to teach IL in the mobile environment and provides students the flexibility to learn IL at any time and in any place. It also creates challenges for librarians and students with overloaded information. Librarians need to verify online information and choose the most appropriate and authoritative information for IL courses so that students can learn the most useful IL knowledge and do not get overwhelmed and lose their interests. The IL education based on WeChat is not just to use the technology and platform, its main purpose is to help students to learn how to better use their mobile devices to search for the information that meets their needs and to master an easier way to acquire and share information.
3. Focus on contents with diverse forms The IL education on WeChat platform, starting from initially releasing announcements only to posting specific contents of IL education nowadays, has made significant improvement. For example, the IL education on the Beijing Normal University Library's WeChat includes 72 micro-videos about chapters of resources, methods, services, applications, disciplines, etc. It also offers mini micro-courses, including thesis proposal series, resources on exam series, e-books series, literature searching series, article manuscripts submission series, scientific research support series, disciplinary resources series and others, with a total of 31 articles. Wuhan University Library's “Xiaobu Wei Ke (Xiaobu micro course)” includes 56 micro-videos on different aspects, such as IL, resource search and utilization, locations and services, academic ethics and norms, and freshmen's micro-courses. The IL education on WeChat does not only post announcements of lectures, freshmen training sessions, etc., but also allows students to receive IL education directly on the WeChat and attracts students with rich contents and forms.
Acknowledgement This paper is one of the research projects, “Practical Research on Mobile Information Literacy Education in University Libraries” (Project No.: 16BTQ006), funded by the National Social Science Fund of China.
4. Providing IL education both online and offline Providing information about IL education on WeChat does not mean getting rid of the traditional way of IL education and teaching it solely through WeChat. It is only the extension of the traditional IL education. Freshman training, micro-curriculum, and self-quizzes in IL education are more suitable for the WeChat platform. For example, the “Welcome Freshmen Column” is launched annually. The column is not only excellent in both pictures and language, but also has diversified forms, such as micro video, information related games, and self quizzes. The key points of the lectures taught in classroom can be made into microcourses which can be either micro-videos or illustrated articles. Campus activities, such as “Search for Superstar Contests,” can be carried out both online and offline.
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literacy perceptions and skills of library and information sciences and humanities students from Bulgaria and Turkey. The International Information & Library Review, 49(2), 145–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572317.2017.1314145. Godwin, P. (2009). Information literacy gets mobile in Vancouver. The Journal of Information Literacy, 3(2), 91–95. https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/JIL/article/view/CC-V3-I22009/1425, Accessed date: 12 April 2019. Hanbidge, A. S., Sanderson, N., & Tin, T. (2015). Using mobile technology to enhance undergraduate student digital information literacy skills: A Canadian case study. IAFOR Journal of Education (pp. 108–121). (Technologies & Education Special ed.). . https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1100656.pdf, Accessed date: 12 April 2019. Hanbidge, A. S., Tin, T., & Sanderson, N. (2018). Information literacy skills on the go: Mobile learning innovation. The Journal of Information Literacy, 12(1), 118–136. http://dx.doi.org/10.11645/12.1.2322. Havelka, S. (2013). Mobile information literacy: Supporting students' research and information needs in a mobile world. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 18(3/4), 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875301.2013.856366. Havelka, S., & Verbovetskaya, A. (2012). Mobile information literacy: Let's use an app for that!. College and research library news (pp. 22–23). January 2012. Huang, H., He, W., and Ye, Q. (2013). 微信及其在图书馆信息服务中的应用 (WeChat and its application in library information services). 图书馆学刊 (Library Journal), 1, 62–64. Huang, J., & Guo, J. (2017). Providing library information services through WeChat: A study of project 985 university libraries in China. Library Trends, 66(2), 101–118. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2017.0031. Incitez China (February 23, 2016). Quick introduction to WeChat enterprise account. China Internet Watchhttps://www.chinainternetwatch.com/16217/wechat-enterpriseaccount/, Accessed date: 22 April 2019. Johnston, N., & Marsh, S. (2014). Using iBooks and iPad apps to embed information literacy into an EFL Foundations course. New Library World, 115(1/2), 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1108/NLW-09-2013-0071. Lawal, V., & Akintunde, S. (2014). E-learning and information literacy at the University of Jos. Library Management, 35(8/9), 607–628. https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-07-20130062. Manso Rodriguez, R., & Machado Rivero, M. (2016). Information skills training through mobile devices: Practical applications of QR codes in academic libraries. The Electronic Library, 34(1), 116–131. Mullins, K. (2017). Research plus mobile app: Information literacy “on the go”. Reference Services Review, 45(1), 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-03-2016-0020. Rossing, J. P., Miller, W. M., Cecil, A. K., & Stamper, S. E. (2012). iLearning: The future of higher education? Student perceptions on learning with mobile tablets. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 12(2), 1–26. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/ journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/2023/1985, Accessed date: 6 April 2019. Statista (2016). Numbers of mobile cell phone subscribers in China from May 2015 to May 2016 (in millions). August 2016 http://www.statista.com/statistics/278204/ china-mobile-users-by-month/.
Jinchi Guo is Associate Research Librarian in the Reference Department of East China Normal University Library, Shanghai, China. Her research interests include information retrieval, information literacy, information consultation, information technology, and social media. She has published a monograph and a number of research papers in journals and conference proceedings. She also teaches a graduate course “Information Retrieval”. Currently, she is chairing a project funded by the National Social Science Fund of China. She can be reached at [email protected]. Jie Huang is Special Projects Cataloging Librarian at the Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Prior to this position, she was associate professor/cataloger at the University of Oklahoma Libraries. Her research interests include library services and technology, information retrieval, and information organization. She has published a number of articles in peer reviewed journals, such as Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, Libri, Reference & User Services Quarterly, Library Management, and Library Trends. She can be reached at [email protected].
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Information literacy education in WeChat environment at academic libraries in China Jinchi Guo, Jie Huang
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East China Normal University Library, Shanghai, China Pennsylvania State University Libraries, PA, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Mobile information literacy University library WeChat
This paper investigates the practice of information literacy education in the mobile environment in China. The research chose 39 university libraries of Project 985 as the objects of study, and especially focused on the practice of the East China Normal University Library for in-depth discussions. The data and examples were collected through surveys on both Internet and mobile Internet from September 1, 2016 to March 31, 2019. Based on the discussion of survey results and specific examination of practice of information literacy education through WeChat at the East China Normal University, this paper offers some experience, feasible strategies, and suggestions on how to improve the mobile information literacy education by using WeChat platform.
Introduction Mobile Internet has quickly become the main approach to surfing the Internet in China, and has subtly changed peoples' learning methods and their daily life. According to the 43rd China Statistical Report on Internet Development published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in February 2019, there were 829 million citizens in China using Internet prior to the end of 2018. It composed 59.6% of the whole population. Among these users, 827 million citizens using cell phones to connect to the Internet. It made the mobile Internet the dominant way in the society (The 43rd China Statistical Report, 2019). In the meantime, the number of users of the popular social media platform app WeChat has seen rapid increase in China. In March 2019, the Chinese high technology company Tencent, which developed the mobile cross-platform instant messaging service, WeChat, in 2011 (Statista, 2016), also released the latest report on its performance in the fourth quarter of 2018. The report showed that the monthly WeChat, a social media platform, active users have reached 1.098 billion at the end of the quarter. Last year, WeChat further increased the penetration rate of low-tier cities and covered a wider range of user ages. On average, more than 750 million WeChat users read the posts of “Friends Circles” every day. Meanwhile, Enterprise WeChat is also rapidly spreading among large enterprises. About 80% of China's top 500 companies have become registered users of Enterprise WeChat (Tencent, 2019). Since WeChat can be downloaded and used for free, plus its powerful “apps within an app” model, a big population in China
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uses it to create personal accounts for chatting with friends both individually or as a group, sharing video or audio information, pictures, etc., or exchanging comments and thoughts. It also allows governments, businesses, and universities to create their public official accounts for daily work and outreach, etc. (Huang & Guo, 2017; Incitez China, 2016). While WeChat kept improving and adding more and more features and functions to cover almost every aspect of people's daily life, not only personal and enterprise usages increased sharply over years, academic libraries in China also started adopting WeChat into their information services with great enthusiasm after Tencent launched its WeChat public platform in August 2012. In that same year, the Beijing Normal University Library and the Beihang University Library were the first among academic libraries to put this social media to use. They both created their WeChat public accounts and sent out the first messages in November 2012. More and more academic libraries followed suit by establishing WeChat public accounts based on the Tencent's platform. Since WeChat has both mobile instant messaging and social media functions, it provides a new approach to teaching information literacy (IL) on the WeChat platform at academic libraries. This paper investigates the IL education through WeChat at the Project 985 university libraries in China based on the surveys through the Internet and mobile Internet, especially focusing on the practice of mobile IL education at the library of East China Normal University (ECNU). Project 985, officially launched in 1998, is a project that attempts to promote the development and reputation of some top universities in China to the world-class level. In its first phase, only 9
Corresponding author at: Cataloging and Metadata Services Department, Paterno Library, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Huang).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102073 Received 30 April 2019; Received in revised form 26 August 2019; Accepted 11 September 2019 0099-1333/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Jinchi Guo and Jie Huang, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102073
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actively participating in the new mobile IL as well. Many of them have taken the advantage of WeChat and applied it into their IL education. Some librarians did research and case studies on how to better teach IL in the WeChat environment. Some librarians proposed to use WeChat to establish an information sharing and learning network (Huang, He, & Ye, 2013). Others suggested that libraries could improve the dissemination effect of graphic information through WeChat by selecting its appropriate types of public accounts and setting up dissemination templates. It could also strengthen the role of WeChat dissemination templates in the IL education (Tian & Ye, 2017). Some case studies and surveys were carried out on practices and current situation of IL education at academic libraries in China (Chen, 2017; Sun, 2016; Xu, 2015). Our survey showed that, among all academic libraries in China, the key academic libraries at the Project 985 universities have been taking the leadership in the improvement of the social media WeChat platform to teach IL.
universities and institutes were selected. Later on, the project was expanded and developed into its second phase. 39 universities were sponsored as the Project 985 universities including ECNU. Both central and local governments provide these universities with guidance and support. Governments and enterprises work together to raise extra funding for them (Huang & Guo, 2017). The present study aims to examine the practice of IL education through WeChat at ECNU in order to propose some strategies feasible for implementation at academic libraries in general. Literature review As our society and people's daily life depend more and more on knowledge and information, the abilities to successfully find and utilize them so as to meet one's needs become more and more important. The IL education plays a crucial role in helping people develop such abilities because many of them, including students, still need guidance and assistance when choosing resources or evaluating websites and apps in the mobile environment (Yarmey, 2011). The concept of IL was first used by Paul Zurkowski, the president of the Information Industry Association (IIA), in 1974. It evolved and expanded in the past decades to accommodate the growing requirements for finding, evaluating, and using the information effectively and efficiently (Behrens, 1994; Walsh, 2012). In 2017, Encheva and co-authors summarized several common characteristics of IL in their article, although their definition can be modified slightly differently nowadays. The IL mainly includes defining the information needs, finding the effective way to search and possess the information needed, evaluating the information found, and using the information to achieve goals, etc. (Encheva, Zlatkova, Keskin, & Vatansever, 2017). In today's digital world, the ever changing and highly developed technologies have dramatically altered the approach to searching information and the learning environment in our society. The ownership of internet-capable mobile devices increased significantly. The popularity of mobile technology at colleges and universities worldwide has impacted higher education greatly and caused educators to incorporate the technology in their teaching and education (Havelka, 2013; Rossing, Miller, Cecil, & Stamper, 2012). Academic libraries are no exception. With the application of various technologies in the library and information science field, not only some new terms, such as “digital information literacy” and “mobile information literacy,” have emerged, but they also lead to new methods for teaching IL at libraries. Many librarians recognized these changes and tried to adapt to this growing trend (Godwin, 2009; Havelka, 2013; Manso Rodriguez & Machado Rivero, 2016). Havelka and Verbovetskaya (2012) pointed out that librarians should evaluate apps and mobile sites available on the market and recommend the best authoritative ones to users. Meanwhile, the mobile IL skills need to be taught and embedded into standard instruction classes (Havelka & Verbovetskaya, 2012). Constructing a new digital and IL framework to give users more relevant curricula and training becomes an important task for libraries (Clark, Coward, Rothschild, Reynal, & Richter, 2017). Walsh (2012) summarized the variation between fixed IL and mobile IL based on the existing literature in his article and identified six significant aspects of information engagement on the move from his study. In their research, Walsh and Godwin (2012) discussed how people's search through mobile device changed the way of discovering, evaluating, and re-using information. They emphasized that libraries need to focus on changes from IL to mobile IL. In their conclusion, new models for mobile information literacy were proposed (Walsh & Godwin, 2012). A number of libraries around the world advocate and facilitate teaching IL through mobile technology and e-learning platforms (Encheva et al., 2017; Godwin, 2009; Hanbidge, Sanderson, & Tin, 2015; Hanbidge, Tin, & Sanderson, 2018; Havelka, 2013; Johnston and Marsh, 2014; Lawal & Akintunde, 2014). Some libraries have developed their own IL mobile apps to assist students in their performance of information retrieval tasks (Mullins, 2017). Academic libraries in China have been
Research objects and methodology Since the launch of the WeChat public platform in August 2012, its functions have been increasing. Many university libraries have been making various attempts to explore the use of the WeChat public platform in a more in-depth manner, providing timely information and services and building a comprehensive, systematic custom menu beyond the initial push of news and announcements. This research intends to study the following issues: (1) Which 985 universities use the WeChat platform for IL education? (2) How effective is the use of information push and custom menus in IL education of the WeChat platform? (3) What are the main methods of IL education on the WeChat platform? (4) Which type of campus activities makes the best use of the WeChat platform? (5) To what extent do students make use of IL education on the WeChat platform? This study consists of two parts. In the first part, all 39 university libraries in the Project 985 were surveyed; in the second part, more data were collected particularly from the East China Normal University Library for further in-depth analysis and discussion. The study used the Internet and mobile Internet to collect the data on IL education using the WeChat public accounts at the 985 university libraries, and then analyzed them in different categories. The data collection started on September 1, 2016 and ended on March 31, 2019. The steps are as below: 1. Looked for WeChat public accounts of the 985 university libraries on the WeChat public platform. Became a “follower” once one was found. 2. Searched promotion information about mobile IL on all official websites of the 985 University Libraries to add the WeChat public accounts not found on mobile Internet. Confirmed the accounts which had already been found. 3. Checked the information released or published on those WeChat public accounts, starting on September 1, 2016, and collected data until March 31, 2019. 4. Continued to look for newly added WeChat public accounts of the 985 university libraries every semester. Continued to search information about the opening of the WeChat public accounts on the official sites of those 985 university libraries which had not opened one yet. Added any new account found to the “pay attention” list and followed it. 5. Checked the new “dissemination information” of those WeChat public accounts every week, tracking and recording the information related to IL. 2
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University Library, the Xiamen University Library, and the East China Normal University Library used freshmen column to deliver detailed user manual with photos and videos. The videos posted by the Beijing Normal University Library on the column were from 2009 to 2016. The freshmen column set up by 4 libraries, namely, Sun Yat-Sen University Library, Central South University Library, Harbin Institute of Technology Library, and Ocean University of China Library, allowed only freshmen at the universities to log in and use it. Teaching IL through WeChat platform should make full use of the characteristics and advantages the platform offers. It will be more beneficial to students when libraries employ both means of posting information on the accounts and setting up a column for each special topic on self-defined menus. Regularly posting information in the libraries' accounts reminds students frequently about the importance of IL and helps them develop a habit of learning IL. Setting up fixed columns on self-defined menu gives students the flexibility to learn IL at any time whenever they can and encourage them to take their initiatives to become active learners. In the orientation season at the East China Normal University Library, the “Column for Freshmen” is set up as a first-level menu on its WeChat platform to help freshmen quickly familiarize themselves with the library. At normal times, the “Beginners' Guide” is set up as a second-level sub-menu under the first-level menu “Introduction to the Library.” This column is also posted on the library's official website simultaneously. “Beginners' Guide” mainly includes “Library Exploration,” “Videos for Freshmen,” “Training and Courses,” “E-book Borrowing,” “FAQs,” “My ECNU Library,” etc. Under each column, there were sub-columns. For example, there were three main sub-columns under the column “Training and Courses.” They were “First Lesson for Using Library's Resources,” “Series Lectures on Information Literacy,” “Courses for Undergraduate/Graduate (total of nine courses).” The contents, which consist of detailed text with illustrations and micro videos, were straightforward and easy to understand. To attract more students' attention, the description written in the text was vivid and humorous. Videos were fun to watch. The library posts relevant information regularly.
6. Viewed the customized menus, various functions, and improvements of those WeChat public accounts every month. Findings In China, the main forms of IL education at academic libraries are: courses, lectures, freshmen training, and campus activities. The data collected for this study were categorized into these forms around the general situation. (1) General situation In the mobile environment, many users have formed the habit of having smart phones with them all the time and using them for checking information and reading. The 985 university libraries in China aim at the objective “wherever users are, wherever library services are.” The services these libraries provide closely follow the changes of users' information searching behavior and focus more on mobile aspect. All 39,985 university libraries have mobile library apps and opened library's WeChat public accounts now. Among them, 34 libraries (87.2%) have posted IL course information on WeChat accounts or set up a column related to an IL course in the self-defined menu of WeChat. Students feel they have benefited from the IL information posted on libraries' WeChat accounts. According to the survey of 433 students at the East China Normal University, 70.21% of students surveyed hoped their library to set up the IL related columns on the library's WeChat public account so that they could enhance their IL knowledge in a convenient way. (2) Freshmen training Among all 39 Project 985 university libraries, 31 libraries (79.5%) posted freshmen training information (see Table 1), of which 10 libraries (25.6%) posted freshmen training announcements, 17 libraries (43.6%) posted comprehensive information including photos, 7 libraries (17.9%) posted micro videos. Also, 6 libraries (15.4%) posted video games related to library's knowledge, and 11 libraries (28.2%) sent out self-test questionnaires. Since more and more librarians know how to better use self-defined menus after the WeChat had been used for years, more libraries started using those menus to disseminate their information and do the reach-out. The advantages of using self-defined menus are that they provide simpler, more logic, and more effective ways for users to browse information intuitively through the key information portal in the public account, and at the same time, save librarians' time spent on sending out information. Due to the effectiveness and efficiency of using self-defined menus, now 18,985 libraries (46.2%) had set up the “Freshmen Column” on the self-defined menus of their WeChat public accounts (during the freshmen-welcoming period, 18 libraries had the “Freshmen Column, then 10 libraries kept it as a regular column”). Through these freshmen columns on self-defined menus, 2.6% posted freshmen training announcements, 41% posted comprehensive information including photos, 23.1% posted micro videos, 12.8% provided video games related to libraries' knowledge, 20.5% posted self-test questionnaires (see Table 2). Peking University Library and Southeast University Library even put the column on the first level of the menu to emphasize and highlight its importance so that freshmen would pay more attention to the column when they use the WeChat. The Tsinghua University Library, the Beijing Normal
(3) Courses IL Courses taught at Project 985 university libraries usually include required and elective IL general education courses, and IL instruction embedded in other courses for undergraduate and graduate students. Most of those courses use the title called information literacy, information retrieval and utilization, document retrieval, and so on. The data collected from all 39 university libraries showed that the Peking University Library has posted its IL courses information in the “Freshmen Column” on the first-level menu of its WeChat account. The Northeast University Library provided the introduction on IL courses in the column called “Wei Tu Xue Tang (Micro-library Classroom)” on the second-level menu of WeChat. Fudan University Library and the University of Science and Technology of China both posted the information about elective IL courses on their WeChat accounts. But so far, all 39 university libraries which have WeChat public accounts have not set up the column about IL courses on their WeChat accounts. More efforts need to be made by these libraries and librarians. Besides regular courses, there is another type of course called “Micro Course.” Micro course as a new teaching method has been applied to the IL education. Wuhan University Library launched its online
Table 1 Freshmen training at 985 university libraries. Methods of posting
Announcement
Detailed text with illustrations
Micro video
Video games
Self-test questionnaire
Posting in public account Self-defined menu
25.6% 2.6%
43.6% 41.0%
17.9% 23.1%
15.4% 12.8%
28.2% 20.5%
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Table 2 IL lectures at 985 university libraries. Methods of posting
Announcement
Detailed text with illustrations
Micro video
Posting in public account Self-defined menu
92.3% 35.9%
12.8% 5.1%
10.3% 2.6%
micro course “Xiaobu Wei Ke (Xiaobu micro course),” which included 30 micro videos on IL, searching resources, library services, academic ethics, etc. This course was posted on the library's WeChat public account. It was also listed on the self-defined menu of WeChat to help users find the course quickly. The Beijing Normal University Library's micro courses contained several chapters: resources, services, methods, and subjects. With sub-divided points of knowledge and short videos, these courses dynamically presented the library's rich resources, its professional services, information retrieval and how to utilize information management tools, etc. One course was posted each week on the library's WeChat account. The IL courses offered by the East China Normal University Library were put in the column “Library Training and Courses” on the secondlevel sub-menu under the column “Introduction to the Library” on the first-level menu of the library's WeChat account. Meanwhile, the courses information was linked directly to the library's official website. The information on both WeChat account and the official website was updated at the same time. The information on IL courses was promoted and distributed to all freshmen through official WeChat and website when they started their first semester. Students were strongly encouraged to take IL courses. At the beginning of 2013, the graduate elective IL course at the university library started to include teaching the content on mobile information. In each semester, a WeChat group was built for students taking the class. Students learned how to search and retrieve information from the WeChat platform, such as the library WeChat public account, and how to share information with others in the WeChat group. It aroused students' strong interest in exploring the library WeChat account for information and knowledge. In addition to communication and sharing among students, and between librarians and students, the WeChat group also offered a convenient platform on which students could ask questions and get timely guidance and assistance from librarians. When one student asked questions, the whole class could see the assistance and answers from the librarian and benefit from them.
departments of the university. In 2016, the library posted the series “Quick Review for Subject E-resources,” and the main points and contents of other lectures, such as Database of Commonly Used Chinese Journals, Chinese Dissertation Database, and Resources on Education. The library also posted the series called “‘How-to’ Lecture Hall” in 2017. Each post of the series sent out one micro video and introduced one topic. Additionally, this series was displayed on the “Library's Column” of the university's Enterprise WeChat account. The library plans to collect some lectures with detailed text and illustrations and put them in the column “Library Training and Courses” on WeChat second-level sub-menu after a period of accumulation. (5) Campus activities Campus activities are generally IL contests, quizzes, self-tests, etc. Among all 985 university libraries, 10 have posted information about campus activities related to IL on their accounts. Peking University Library's “Talent Competition on Searching Information” includes pre-contest training, online preliminary contests, and live finals. Jilin University Library and Shandong University Library have adopted online quizzes to their IL competitions. The Tsinghua University Library and The Xiamen University Library included the freshmen general self-tests in the “Freshmen Column” at the secondlevel sub-menu on their WeChat accounts. The East China Normal University Library shows its campus activities related to IL in the same column as the IL courses. The library had carried out a variety of IL related activities on its WeChat public account. Every April in the past few years, the library held the “Library Books Fair” and “Information Literacy Talent Competition.” The competition was divided into three rounds of preliminary, semi-final and final. The library sent out messages about IL lecture series and workshops provided by other departments and colleges along the information on IL related activities. The library developed the WeChat quiz system during the freshmen-welcome period in the 2015. Freshmen took the self-test quiz on WeChat to evaluate their own knowledge about the library. The number of freshmen participating in the quiz through WeChat was over ten times more than the number taking the traditional web version. The easier way for taking the quiz encouraged freshmen to take the first step toward IL education. The significant increase of participants drove up the growth of fans of the library's WeChat public account. The number of fans increased by 62% from one year before. The 10,000th fan joined the group during the freshmen orientation in the 2016. The steadily growing number of fans has brought over more audience of the IL education on the library's WeChat platform.
(4) Lectures Lectures held at these university libraries have different types and lengths, such as one-hour library lecture series, special-topic lectures, and lectures on using special databases. So far, 36 out of 39 Project 985 university libraries (92.3%) posted information about IL lectures on their WeChat accounts. Among them, 92.3% posted announcements; 12.8% also posted detailed information with pictures about lectures; 10.3% even posted micro videos about lectures. By the end of March 2019, 13 university libraries (36.1%) had set up columns on lecture announcements in the sub-menu at the second level in their WeChat public accounts; 35.9% libraries had posted announcements in their columns; 5.1% had posted the information with both detailed text and pictures; 2.6% had provided videos for the lectures. Huazhong University of Science and Technology Library posted micro-lectures which consisted 26 articles published on WeChat. On the East China Normal University Library's WeChat public platform, the announcement about its lectures was posted in the column “Library Training and Courses” at the second-level sub-menu. The link was connected with the library's official website so that both platforms could be updated at the same time. The training part mainly includes weekly announcement for every Wednesday's IL series of lectures and lectures on which the library collaborated with other
Discussion and suggestion In today's mobile environment, the application of the WeChat platform has injected new vitality into the university library. Traditional IL education can no longer meet the information needs and searching behavior of mobile users. Academic libraries need to further explore and improve IL education based on the WeChat platform. In light of this study, some discussion and suggestions are made below. 1. WeChat platform becomes the main way of mobile IL education 87.2% of 985 university libraries use WeChat platform for IL 4
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The WeChat public accounts of the 985 university libraries have accumulated a certain number of student fans, but articles posted by the libraries on their WeChat accounts have not attracted enough attention from students and the number of readings is not high (Huang & Guo, 2017). How can IL education attract more students' attention in an information-explosion era? The key is better understanding the needs of students and their searching behavior. IL education in the mobile environment is not just about educating students what to learn, but also teach students what they need to learn. For example, the Tsinghua University Library includes a micro survey in “Freshmen Column” on the second level sub-menu, and in the welcoming message. Librarians can also use the data from surveys to personalize IL education. IL can be carried out for students with different needs. For instance, if the WeChat custom menu is set up according to the needs of different groups of students, then they can view different WeChat menus. Also, different subjects of information can be sent to students enrolled in different programs so that they can receive information most relevant to their interests and needs.
education. University libraries in China have abandoned the development of library APPs on their own or cooperation with manufacturers to develop them because the WeChat platform has become the main way of mobile IL education. Two main reasons lead to this phenomenon. First, the number of WeChat users has rapidly increased in a relative short period, and has now reached 963 million. College students have developed a habit of using WeChat for checking information. Therefore, WeChat has become an important tool of IL education so that students can study IL wherever and whenever they want to. Second, the WeChat platform has added more and more functions to achieve whatever library APPs provide. The operation of the WeChat public account is not technically demanding for libraries. It reduces libraries' spending on technical, labor and other costs for mobile IL education. 2. Establishing IL columns to better utilizing WeChat features With the improvement of WeChat public platform, the IL education at university libraries has evolved accordingly. From initially posting information only to providing IL, freshmen training, lectures, courses and campus activities, etc., more and more university libraries utilize custom menus to set up special columns on the WeChat so that they can take advantages of both information posting and custom menus to better serve students. The custom menu allows libraries to organize the information in a more comprehensive, systematic and logic way. Students can learn IL and other information on the menus anytime and anywhere. At the same time, the feature of information posting also shows its advantage. It has fixed columns which can continuously post relevant graphic information or video in a timely manner. It is helpful for reminding and stimulating students' attention so that students develop a habit of receiving and reading relevant information on WeChat.
6. Strengthening interaction with students IL education is not just a course that a teacher teaches and students learn. It should be based on an open, interactive and exploratory educational model. As to WeChat, it is not only a channel for posting information, but also an interactive platform. Libraries should make full use of WeChat for more effective and instant interaction, e.g., organizing IL contests, prize-winning activities of questions and answers, etc. Libraries should encourage students to register and participate in such events through WeChat. The East China Normal University Library conducted a series of lectures on IL and on special topics related to different programs before the “Information Literacy Competence Competition.” The Peking University Library gave students the precontest training before the “Talent on Information-Searching Competition.” This study demonstrates that social media platform WeChat has been applied to IL education at many top university libraries in China. It gives libraries and librarians a means to teach IL in the mobile environment and provides students the flexibility to learn IL at any time and in any place. It also creates challenges for librarians and students with overloaded information. Librarians need to verify online information and choose the most appropriate and authoritative information for IL courses so that students can learn the most useful IL knowledge and do not get overwhelmed and lose their interests. The IL education based on WeChat is not just to use the technology and platform, its main purpose is to help students to learn how to better use their mobile devices to search for the information that meets their needs and to master an easier way to acquire and share information.
3. Focus on contents with diverse forms The IL education on WeChat platform, starting from initially releasing announcements only to posting specific contents of IL education nowadays, has made significant improvement. For example, the IL education on the Beijing Normal University Library's WeChat includes 72 micro-videos about chapters of resources, methods, services, applications, disciplines, etc. It also offers mini micro-courses, including thesis proposal series, resources on exam series, e-books series, literature searching series, article manuscripts submission series, scientific research support series, disciplinary resources series and others, with a total of 31 articles. Wuhan University Library's “Xiaobu Wei Ke (Xiaobu micro course)” includes 56 micro-videos on different aspects, such as IL, resource search and utilization, locations and services, academic ethics and norms, and freshmen's micro-courses. The IL education on WeChat does not only post announcements of lectures, freshmen training sessions, etc., but also allows students to receive IL education directly on the WeChat and attracts students with rich contents and forms.
Acknowledgement This paper is one of the research projects, “Practical Research on Mobile Information Literacy Education in University Libraries” (Project No.: 16BTQ006), funded by the National Social Science Fund of China.
4. Providing IL education both online and offline Providing information about IL education on WeChat does not mean getting rid of the traditional way of IL education and teaching it solely through WeChat. It is only the extension of the traditional IL education. Freshman training, micro-curriculum, and self-quizzes in IL education are more suitable for the WeChat platform. For example, the “Welcome Freshmen Column” is launched annually. The column is not only excellent in both pictures and language, but also has diversified forms, such as micro video, information related games, and self quizzes. The key points of the lectures taught in classroom can be made into microcourses which can be either micro-videos or illustrated articles. Campus activities, such as “Search for Superstar Contests,” can be carried out both online and offline.
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Jinchi Guo is Associate Research Librarian in the Reference Department of East China Normal University Library, Shanghai, China. Her research interests include information retrieval, information literacy, information consultation, information technology, and social media. She has published a monograph and a number of research papers in journals and conference proceedings. She also teaches a graduate course “Information Retrieval”. Currently, she is chairing a project funded by the National Social Science Fund of China. She can be reached at [email protected]. Jie Huang is Special Projects Cataloging Librarian at the Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Prior to this position, she was associate professor/cataloger at the University of Oklahoma Libraries. Her research interests include library services and technology, information retrieval, and information organization. She has published a number of articles in peer reviewed journals, such as Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, Libri, Reference & User Services Quarterly, Library Management, and Library Trends. She can be reached at [email protected].
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