Towards an exceptional undergraduate personal learning experience: the Personal Librarian Programme, a pilot project at Rhodes University Library

摘要

This paper is a record of a unique intervention for enhancing the Undergraduate learning experience at Rhodes University. It will focus on the establishment of the project, the experiences encountered and lessons learned thus far. In April 2013, a vibrant team of 13 librarians embarked on a Personal Librarian Pilot Project at the Rhodes University Library. The Personal Librarian Programme is primarily directed at undergraduate students at Rhodes University. In an attempt to bridge the information literacy skills gap that exists between Senior School and University in South Africa, the idea behind this programme is that each incoming first year student is assigned a Personal Librarian who will remain that individual’s contact in the library throughout his/her academic career at Rhodes University. The project came about as a result of research exploring the perceptions of both students and lecturers in the Commerce Faculty at Rhodes University with regard to Information Literacy practices and needs (Gontshi, 2011). The study revealed and recorded a shortcoming in the Information Literacy ability of students between Senior School Level and University Level. It became clear that new University students were not aware of the important link between their academic studies and the Library which in turn suggested the need to make Rhodes University librarians and the role that they play in the academic world more obvious to these new students (Gontshi, 2011). The Personal Librarian Programme was devised to fill this need. The Librarians involved in this programme include staff from all sections of the Library: circulation, faculty liaison and bibliographic/technical services. The training needs of staff who did not work directly with students were identified and the relevant training provided. The staff from Circulation and Bibliographic/Technical services sections identified a need to advance their knowledge on the use of library from a users’ perspective. The training focused on the following: “Brainstorming a research topic with a student”; “Identifying relevant databases to conduct a research topic” and “Conducting a search on relevant databases for the research topic” – this included ‘different ways of devising an effective search technique’. The training ensured a good foundation for these librarians to develop their confidence to work with users. The project, modeled on a similar programme at the Yale University Library in America, was also a direct result of Rhodes University Library’s involvement in the Carnegie Research Libraries Consortium (2009 – 2011) and a ten-week internship in the United States, seven weeks of which were spent at Yale University.