Meeting Date: Nov 29 2019 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm UTC
Presenter: Mary Chipanshi
Background: International students contribute a significant boost to the economy of every university. It is well documented that students coming to a new university find themselves dealing with different challenges. The literature has identifies that one of the challenges faced by these students in a new university is navigating the library. It is therefore imperative that academic libraries find strategies to assist these students adjust to their new environment. In order to accomplish this effectively, librarians and libraries needs to know the student’s prior library experience. This study was conducted at the University of Zambia, using focus groups. A total of 22 students participated in the focus groups. Students were asked questions related to their experience using UNZA library with regard to searching for information for assignments, using information ethically and evaluating the information. Preliminary results indicate that most of the students use the internet to find resources for their assignments and prefer to consult colleagues instead of a librarian. The library is also viewed more as a reading space than a place they can get resources. They also understood the importance of crediting resources and plagiarism. The results of this project is of benefit to all those working with international students.
Questions:
1. With the librarian program in UNZA is it an undergrad? What’s the training for the students?
It’s ALA accredited program for undergrad, with that degree you can go do your masters. You have to go out of country to do a masters.
2. Do you have to have the master to be a librarian in the university?
You can work in the library as a librarian (because you have a BA in Library Studies) but to get a promotion you need to have a masters.
3. Would you like to go back and do more research?
Having to self-fund the project meant that it was quite costly, so unfortunately probably not. She would try to get funding if she did it again.
4. Do you how much outreach HINARI does? How often?
They go all over the world to train and they go quite often. They’ve been to Zambia 3 times. Their method is to train one librarian at an institution so that librarian can go and teach the other librarians to train students and faculty. Unfortunately, many librarians don’t have the time, so the faculty members and student don’t know about the services offered by HINARI. Users need id and password to access, which the librarians would need to pass onto to the faculty and students.
5. Is there a website for the library?
The librarians wanted to learn about libguides to push out these tools because the current website is the instituional website.
6. Would you want to do a follow-up study on the library changes after your workshops with the faculty?
Maybe, probably to see what happened with the libguides and kahooit
Thoughts
It’s neat that you can do the undergrad at UNZA
Important to understand how international students understand and use information
Could do a follow-up study here (UofR) on other international students