Curtin Sarawak librarians conduct ‘Information Literacy Skills’ workshops for secondary school students

Miri – 10 November 2016 – Training workshops on information literacy skills were conducted over two weeks for 34 secondary school students in Miri by staff of the references services section of The Library at Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak) recently.

The students were from SMK Riam Taman Tunku, SMK Lopeng and SM Sains Miri, and conducting the workshops were staff members Nora Hii Siaw Fong, Annita Weng, Caroline John and Hasfarini Hashim.

The workshops were part of The Library’s community outreach programme and aimed at imparting information literacy skills to the students and how it can be applied in their school work.

The step-by-step approach includes analysing topics, understanding keywords and how to search for keywords, Boolean connectors for broader and narrower searches, and also how to reference topics. The students were also taught how to identify good websites whenever they use the Internet to seek information.

Hasfarini, a student of UiTM Puncak Perdana Shah Alam who is undergoing an internship at The Library, said that it is beneficial for secondary school students to equip themselves with information literacy skills before they enter university as it could ease their learning experience at tertiary level.

The Library regularly conducts activities in collaboration with secondary schools in Miri and other organisations such as Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, Miri, the National Anti-Drug Agency and non-governmental organisations. These include workshops on book cataloguing and classification, safety awareness campaigns and beach-cleaning exercises.

Hii posing with students of SM Sains Miri during one of the workshops.

Group photo of students from SMK Riam Taman Tunku and SMK Lopeng.