Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques

— August 1998 —

Workshops: Advantages, Disadvantages and Considerations

Advantages

• Users are usually very motivated
• Have flexibility over length and frequency of sessions
• Can offer a series of workshops that build on one another

Disadvantages

• Users attending may have a broad range of skills (computer and language)
• May have difficulty getting a room if classroom space is in short supply
• May be hard to fit everything that you want to cover into a single workshop
• Handling large classes for hands-on practice may be difficult

Considerations

• Takes a lot of work to develop good workshop
• Can team teach or bring in experts
• What instructor resources do you have? (Transparencies, presentation software, live online, use “canned demonstrations,” etc.)
• Ideal to include hands-on practice for online searching workshops but may be hard for a one hour session
• How big a class can you manage?

Grace Baysinger, Head Librarian and Bibliographer
Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library, Stanford University Libraries
graceb@stanford.edu