Presents the results of a survey of the students of the Faculty of Law in Osijek, Croatia on their information needs and behaviour regarding the environment legislation.

1. Law Students’ Information
Literacy Skills and Protection of
Environment
Kornelija Petr Balog
Ljiljana Siber
University of Osijek, Croatia

2. Protection of environment and access to
information
• 1998, United Nations - Convention on Access to Information, Public
Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention)
• UNESCO - eight Millennium Development Goals
• reducing biodiversity loss, decreasing CO2 emissions and reversing the
unsustainable use of environmental resources
• ‘Green Libraries’ movement
• environmentally friendly (library) buildings
• environmentally supportive library activities
• promotion of sustainability through education, operations, and outreach

3. Green Libraries in Croatia
• 2011 - Green Library project of the Library Association of Istria
• 2014 - Working Group for Green Libraries, Croatian Library
Association
• ‘The Green Library’ – collection of materials
• Croatian government project Removing Barriers to Energy Efficiency in
Croatia” (EE project)

4. Faculty of Law Library in Osijek – green
activities
• projects on environmental protection:
• Deepening University Cooperation Osijek-Pecs (DUNICOP)
• from 2014 official European Information Centre
• the protection of environment one of the most important issues
• ‘The Green Library’ - collectionof materials (EE project)
• chief librarian – member of the Working Group for Green Libraries (Croatian
Library Association)
• cooperation with the elective course instructor (Environmental
Legislation)
• library organized a workshop on information materials available in the library,
but also outside it

5. Research
• Goal:
• find out about the ability and skills of law students to find and evaluate the relevant
information and/regulations in the domain of environment protection
• find out whether law students recognize the Law Library as a relevant source of
information for this topic
• Hypothesis:
• education and training is necessary to develop avareness about the relevant
information sources for the particular topic
• Methodology:
• paper survey (Eurobarometar instrument)
• sample (n=149)
• students enrolled in the elective course Environmental Legislation (n=39)
• students working in the reading-room (n=110)
• March-May 2015

6. Attitudes toward protection of environment
Importance:
• 4.33 Elective
• 4.38 Library

7. Information sources on protection of
environment
How informed:
• 4.33 Elective
• 3.33 Library

8. Information sources – level of trust

9. Should protection of environment become
integral part of formal education in Croatia?

10. Familiarization with Library holdings
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Elective Library
82%
18%
Position of 'The Green Library' in Osijek
In Law Library

11. Outcomes
• better visibility of the Law Library at the level of the faculty
• raised awareness for the complexity and importance of environment
protection and sustainability
• new course in curriculum in academic 2015/2016
• inclusion of environmental topics in the information literacy
workshops organized by the Law Library

12. Conclusions
• students demonstrated high level of concern for environmental issues
• hypothesis confirmed
• education and training is necessary to develop avareness about the relevant
information sources in the field
• more efforts and initiatives by the library necessary