Cooperation and online searching via a computer‐supported cooperative problem solving environment

As the distance between remote user and librarian continues to grow, we are being forced to re‐examine the way we teach librarians to work. This article suggests that in today's workplace, librarians must be adept at both technical as well as cooperative skills. It also suggests that we must be prepared to teach librarians how to work in collaborative environments that promote clients' needs. Towards this end, we built a computer‐supported cooperative problem solving environment designed to help librarians and remote users work together in performing an online search. We believe that online searching and cooperative skills are highly interrelated and, as such, can be exercised more effectively in a computer‐supported cooperative environment. The environment encourages cooperative work, and yet monitors both individual and group performance. Results from our studies indicated that groups using the interface demonstrated more effective skills than groups who performed the same task face‐to‐face. Furthermore, the Computer‐Supported Cooperative Training (CSCT) environment showed that the competencies relating to group problem description and generation of alternative solutions were the most predictive of successful group interaction. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.