Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the students’ perceptions of librarians as teachers of information literacy at the North-West University in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach The study used a survey research method in which online questionnaires were used to gather data from students who would have attended information literacy classes. Findings Students found librarians to be effective teachers of information literacy, and they found the subject to be very useful. However, some of the surveyed students felt that a lot of the subject was presented in a short period, which could easily result in exhaustion and information overload. The use of local or vernacular languages was also indicated as an area requiring the librarians’ attention for the teachers to be more effective. Practical implications The results of this study support the assessment of librarians as teachers by students to assist them (librarians) to refine their teaching methods and to make the conduct of information literacy worthwhile for the students. Social implications The outcomes of this study may be used to advocate for more information literacy (IL) contact time with the students by librarians when negotiating with faculty. Further, these results may be used to showcase the value placed by students to IL. Originality/value This study is a welcome addition to the scant literature on the quality of teaching delivered by the librarians and the assessment mechanisms used to provide feedback on students’ learning of IL. This study is a first of its kind comparing the perceptions of librarians’ teaching abilities by postgraduate and undergraduate students.
The aim of this study was to establish the impact of the North-West University’s language policy on its library’s print collections. It analyses the languages represented by books held by the North-West University Library and Information Services. The article further established the strategies used by the libraries to develop, preserve and promote African languages in support of the university’s language policy. The paper employed bibliometrics and focus group interviews to gather data. The findings revealed that books in African languages that were recognised by the university were difficult to get on the market. As a result, the majority of books accessioned by the libraries were in English, followed by Afrikaans, and relatively few books in Setswana, and Sesotho. The study is the first of its kind focusing on language policy and academic libraries in South Africa. It is valuable to both policy makers and librarians in their endeavours to develop sizeable African language collections in support of the curricula and research. Among the recommendations is that African language departments at various universities should collaborate with libraries to start open access African language journals, and publish them through the institutional repositories.
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