Abstract

This article analyses the results of a survey carried out on 69 online video tutorials for users’ education in Italian university library systems' websites between February and March 2012. Various aspects were examined: the technical characteristics (type of video, duration, audio, subtitles, "pause" function, language), content, objectives and interactive elements (division into modules, "step-by-step" structure, exercises, final quiz, etc.). The results show that in Italy academic libraries do not make much use of video tutorials for users’ instruction. The most common type of video tutorial is the screen cast (with audio), dedicated to online tools, with very few interactive elements and with a duration between 2 and 4 min. Staff contacts and users' satisfaction questionnaires are usually missing.

Key words: Italian libraries, academic libraries, university library instruction, online library services, tutorials.