Webinar 2: How libraries have changed their role in the last

decadesPresenter: Chenjerai Mabhiza,

University of Namibia

Title: New Roles for Changing Times: UNAM Subject and Campus

Librarians in Context

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New Roles for Changing Times: UNAM Subject Librarians in Context• About the Webinar: This Webinar

contextualises the changing roles of Subjectand Campus Librarians at the University ofNamibia (UNAM) in view of new researchsupport, scholarly communications, informationliteracy, bibliometrics and data managementsupport services.

• “One must never lose time in vainly regrettingthe past nor in complaining about the changeswhich cause us discomfort, for change is thevery essence of life”.

New Roles for Changing Times• For a number of years Subject/Faculty librarians at

UNAM performed traditional roles synonymouswith African university libraries, with regard tosupporting the curriculum and scholarship of theuniversity, in relation to teaching and learning.

• Traditional roles of librarians focused on collectiondevelopment, cataloguing, classification &indexing, and discovery of information (usereducation).

• The changing publishing trends, the open accessmovement, and textbook and journal suppliermodels, among others, have resulted in a newinformation ecosystem that has impacted on theinformation managers and knowledge officersglobally, including subject librarians at UNAM.

New Roles for Changing Times

• In a bid to align our services with theneeds of today`s students,researchers and members of faculty,we have added new functions to theroles of subject librarians.

• A summary of selected new roles arepresented below:

Scholarly Communications• We advise research students and members of

faculties on current trends, best practices andavailable options in research publication anddissemination methods and models nationallyand internationally, including scholarlycommunications and open access publishing.

• We advocate for suitable models of scholarlycommunications and also promote preservationof faculty research outputs in the UNAMInstitutional Repository administered by theLibrary.

Research Support Services to Faculty

• As subject librarians we provide active supportthat helps to increase the productivity oflecturers` research, departmental and facultyscholarship.

• We profile the current and changing facultyresearch interests first.

• Understanding of a typical researcher`sexperience, including their workflow, and howresearchers access and use information withina discipline/ subject and at different stages ofthe researcher`s career is important in this typeof service.

Research Support Services• Providing informal alert services• Co-researching about scholarship of teaching• Co-researching about scholarly publishing in

specific area of knowledge• Research consultations by postgraduate students

and lecturers• Answering in-depth reference questions• Research profiles of academic staff and helping

students to create literature maps• Following the systematic reviews workshop held in

2016 - Co-researching about systematic reviews –collaboration between librarians and lecturers oridentified University of Cardiff librarians

Teaching Support• Subject Librarians facilitate selection and

acquisition of resources to be used by departmentsand faculties to support instruction.

• Subject Librarians need deep knowledge of theirdisciplines (which resources support which levelsof students?).

• Knowledge of E-Book Supplier Models and theopen access movement is required

• Excellent knowledge of available content of theirdisciplines is required.

• Challenging to Subject librarians whose facultieshave many academic departments and coursestaught under the same faculty

Expanding Roles in Support of Teaching and Learning

• UNAM Library – Piloting embedded Information Literacy (IL) programme under the module: English for Academic Purposes offered by the Language Centre

• Research Seminars – MED, PGSC, TLIU -Literature Review and Literature Search

• Teaching students how to design studies, draft Research Proposals

• Course Lecturer for Research Methodology Modules for postgraduate students – PGD SSS and MASSS, Department of Safety and Strategic Studies, Military School, etc.

Literature Search Support to Faculty and Researchers

• Providing literature support to academic staffbased in different faculties, postgraduate students,and independent researchers has become one ofour key services as Subject librarians

• Availability of too much literature to review orevaluate can lead to information overload, andsubsequently anxiety among students, academicstaff and researchers

• The increase in our subscription based e-journalsand databases (Science Direct, Emerald UniversityPress, Hein Online, Taylor & Francis, Sage, andSA E-Publications, etc.);

Literature Search Support• Research4Life e-journal databases

(AGORA, HINARI, OARE & ARDI); • INASP e-journal databases (University of

Chicago, JSTOR, Societal Journals, etc.); • Open Access Movement (BioMed Central,

Google Scholar, Directory of Open Access Journals, Directory of Open Access Books, Institutional Repositories (universities), and Organisational websites (FAO, WHO, OIE, GRN departments, etc.) since 2008/2010

Collaborative Relationships• Collaboration and partnerships at various

university committee levels, such as,Senate, are critical to the development ofnew library services and liaison roles

• Many complex initiatives requirecollaboration between the library, schools& faculties, and Centres: Variousassignments emanating from theestablishment of the School of Medicine,Faculty of Engineering & IT

Collaborative Relationships• School of Public Health, School of

Veterinary Science, and SouthernCampus, etc.

• Integration of former Colleges ofEducation libraries into the UNAM Librarysystem - study

• Open access initiatives: co-hosting theFODUSA and AGORA workshop

• Namibia Digital Library project - UNAMLibrary responsible for its establishment

Collaborative Relationships• We sometimes use hybrid models or team

approach in executing some of the projects/tasks - Librarians serve on various UNAMCommittees/ Task Forces

• establishment of CEQUAM, followed byCEQUAM and NCHE led Institutional andFaculty Audits; PGSC assignments; drafting ofUNAM policies - Plagiarism, Copyright,Intellectual Property, etc.

• Subject/ Faculty Librarians are library liaisonswith academic departments and faculty

Collaborative Relationships• Faculty of Humanities (FHSS) and Library

Collaboration on the SCAP Project – gave birth to the UNAM IR; Scholarly Communications Policy; and Library mandate of administering the IR.

• The University of Cape Town (UCT) was an active collaborating partner and advisor on the above project

• We are now collaborating with the International University of Management (IUM) on setting up the IUM IR

Gateways to Information and Knowledge

• In a number of cases, we serve as“gateways” for locating information forfaculty and independent researchers –some of our lecturers do not havesufficient searching skills, while othershave hectic teaching and research loads(“they often call me a life saver”).

• We need outstanding skills in informationdiscovery and literature searches tosucceed.

Gateways to Information

• Management of bibliographic records– there are many requests fromlecturers for training on how to useMendeley, Zotero, and End Note, etc.

• Knowledge on citation andreferencing is critical

Open Access• Scholarly Communications Policy - the

Library has the mandate to administerthe Institutional Repository (IR) onbehalf the University.

• Subject Librarians are mandated toadvise academicians, researchersaffiliated to UNAM and postgraduatestudents to deposit or make their peerreviewed scholarly outputs accessiblethrough the IR

Open Access• Electronic copies of all examined theses

and dissertations submitted byPostgraduate Research Students andapproved by the Postgraduate StudiesCommittee (PGSC) and cleared by theCentre for Postgraduate Studies asfulfilling the requirements for a Masterdegree or Doctoral degree (PhD/ Doctor ofPhilosophy).

• Advise students, lecturers andresearchers on how to publish throughother open access platforms, such asDOAJ and BioMed Central

Undergraduate Students Support• We mentor undergraduates to develop

research, critical analysis, and informationliteracy skills.

• Through Information literacy (IL) instruction, wetrain undergraduate students to demonstrateknowledge and application of skills in twoareas, namely:

• (a) Information seeking, which concernssearching for and identifying relevant and up-to-date sources which are applicable in one`sresearch area; and

• (b) literature search and research strategies.

Example of Librarian`s Role in Students` Research

• We help students during the research process to:• Read intelligently and get ideas readily; and to Create

Structured Search Queries. Some considerations:• The type of population students are studying• Environment, Situation or Context they are working in • How many years do they want to go back for literature

searches?• Language(s) Preferred & Geographical specificity• Research and or Review publications• Legal Instruments (Acts, Policies & Regulations, White

papers, etc.)• Commentaries; Conference Proceedings Reports• Case studies

Postgraduate Students Support • In one of my roles as Postgraduate students

and Research Librarian, I have introduced anew service - postgraduate students` researchconsultations.

• In these sessions, I engage postgraduatestudents and doctoral candidates (2-3 hours)with a view to enable them to acquire criticalassessment skills, which involve scanning,analysing, summarizing and integrating sourcesso as to identify reliable, valid and crediblematerial;

Postgraduate Students…• Formulating focused research topics, problem

statements and research questions; carryingout in-depth literature reviews; and

• Helping define each student`s research areausing a checklist of 10 questions.

• A research strategy helps students to succeed with their literature searches:

• 1. Students need to make decisions with regard to appropriate sources for their topics:

Postgraduate Students…–primary documents, such as, journal

articles, government information,statistics, and interviews/oral histories;research reports, theses, and

–Secondary sources, such as books, andauthentic/ approved internet sites.

• 2. Tertiary Sources, such as Subject Encyclopaedias can be very good sources of theory, especially in Linguistics.

• 3. Determine appropriate databases to search for journal articles.

Postgraduate Students…• If using mainly full-text databases, they should

also use discipline-oriented databases, such as,PubMed, HINARI (Medicine), AGORA(Agriculture), OARE (Environmental Sciences),SA E-Publications (Bus Management, LabourRelations, Law, etc.), SAFLI (Law), NursingAcademic (Nursing Science), Emerald(Accounting, Business Management,Economics, etc.), ERIC (Education), IEEE(Engineering), Science Direct (NaturalSciences, Psychology, etc.), among others.

Concluding Remarks• Information professionals globally are

facing challenging and at the same timeexciting times.

• Our work environment is becoming morecomplex, there are constant changes inthe organizational, technological andinformation environment.

• We have to keep up with newtechnologies and systems, new forms ofinformation and its sources, as well asnew tasks and roles.

• Thank you for listening to me

• It`s now my turn to listen toyou and to take a fewquestions, if any.