Browsing by Author "Dabengwa, Israel Mbekezeli"

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    A phenomenological study of experiences in blended librarianship among academic librarians in Zimbabwe with special reference to selected higher education institutions
    (2018) Dabengwa, Israel Mbekezeli; Raju, Jayarani; Matingwina, Thomas
    This exploratory phenomenological study served the purpose of investigating the phenomenon of the Zimbabwean academic librarian whose professional identity has been evolving into Bell and Shank's (2007) blended librarianship over the past decade. The primary objective of this study was to explore the shared experiences of blended librarianship to find out how effectively Zimbabwean academic librarians adhere to their dynamic roles and functions, and how they are perceived in the university. To achieve the primary goal, the study was framed using the theoretical constructs from Lave and Wenger's (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) and Communities of Practice (CoP), to understand how academic librarians learnt in the workplace through involvement in authentic work tasks. The research methodology relied on Heidegger’s Interpretive Phenomenology Analysis and the philosophy of interpretivism. The researcher looked for the academic librarian’s experiences of blended librarianship and then made sense of the academic librarian’s interpretation, to draw out a common meaning of blended librarianship. The researcher collected data from a calculated sample of 101 academic librarians from non-professional roles to Library Board level. Data collected was triangulated using multiple methods of data collection that included a semi-structured questionnaire, document research and semi-structured interviews. Data was collected from academic librarians from the Bindura State University of Education, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Lupane State University, Midlands State University, the National University of Science and Technology, and PHSBL80 University which was anonymised. Though blended librarianship had been adopted in different academic libraries through various ways that account for the sociocultural and historical issues in each academic library, it can be concluded that blended librarianship may bridge the theory-practice divide. The study recommends academic libraries to move towards integrating the teaching of Information Literacy Skills (ILS) and Low Threshold Technologies Applications (LTAs) into the courses that are taught by lecturers. This is set to place academic librarians within the context of their community, where they can contribute “legitimately” as equals, rather than working at the periphery of the classroom where they have a subservient role as seen in the study.
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    Academic librarian's transition to blended librarianship: a phenomenology of selected academic librarians in Zimbabwe
    (2019-05-13) Dabengwa, Israel Mbekezeli; Raju, Jaya; Matingwina, Thomas
    This paper explores the shared experiences of practices of blended librarianship among Zimbabwean academic librarians to identify how adequately they comply with their dynamic roles and functions. The paper relies on the theoretical constructs from Bell and Shank's (2004, 2007) blended librarianship and Lave and Wenger's (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) to understand how Zimbabwean academic librarians practice blended librarianship in the workplace through engagement in legitimate work tasks. The investigators used phenomenology to explore academic librarians' experiences of blended librarianship. They selected a sample of 101 academic librarians and delivered a semi-structured questionnaire to the sample, conducted document research and interviewed key informants from the sample. The researchers collected data from the Bindura University of Science Education, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Lupane State University, Midlands State University, the National University of Science and Technology, and PHSBL80 Library which chose to be undisclosed. Each institution adopted blended librarianship in its way. Four (4) different categories of blended librarianship emerged from the experiences; that is “transcending blended librarians”, “partially blended librarians”, “intermittent blended librarians” and “aspiring blended librarians”, displaying each institution's level of instructional technology and instructional design roles. The study proposes that the “Academic librarian's transition to blended librarianship” two-by-two matrix that developed was in this inquiry needs further refinement. Further enquiries may test the matrix within the same sites or other locales altogether to corroborate if the results are replicable.