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In recent years, librarians, as a profession, have attempted to identify individual users' needs. Librarians in the past have served their communities with people, rather than the storage of books and materials, as their top priority; however, in library and information science literature, user‐centered theory is new. It offers a psychological/sociological depth that the practical literature, as late as 1990, fails to touch.

In 1981, James Rice proposed that there are three levels of library instruction: library orientation, library instruction, and bibliographic instruction. Library orientation provides an introduction for users to the physical library layout and selected resources and services. The more subtle objectives are to reduce user anxiety, motivate subsequent use, and promote the availability of helpful service. In Rice's model, the second level provides a more extensive explanation of specific library materials and the third is the offering of formal courses in bibliography.