Interinstitutional Library Collaboration: Support for a Joint Master of Public Health Program

Ford, Emily; Zeigen, Laura

doi:10.1108/s0065-2830(2013)0000037007

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…Only 34 or 35.8 per cent of the 95 co-owned LibGuides are cross-campus or inter-campus collaborations suggesting that there is very little cross-pollination of ideas between different campuses of the same universities in South Africa. The results of this study also show that unlike other countries, there are no inter-institutional collaborations (Ford and Zeigen, 2014) further showing that the cross-pollination of ideas is lacking not only within the same public university but also between universities. Inter-institutional collaboration is an area that LibGuides owners will have to explore to avoid unnecessary duplication of resources, time, and effort.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

“…This could be as a result of librarians being comfortable to work with those they know and those who are closer to them. There were no inter-institutional collaborations (Ford and Zeigen, 2014) noticed in this study. Possible reasons for this include the fact that librarians in South Africa may see no value in collaborations, and very few opportunities exist for ordinary librarians to be sent on work visits to other universities.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Various studies have been conducted around the world (Little et al , 2010; Leibiger and Aldrich, 2013; Ford and Zeigen, 2014; Parrott and Anderson, 2015; Rose et al , 2016) and in South Africa (Chiware, 2014) about how librarians either have used LibGuides as a collaboration tool or collaborated with others to create a LibGuide. Surveying the literature on collaboration on LibGuides brought out two levels of collaborations on LibGuides each with multi-layers.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The LibGuide was piloted to 18 students and 94 per cent of them expressed that the LibGuide was easy to navigate, and that they learned something new on the guide, proving the success of the collaboration. Two librarians from two different institutions in the USA, Portland State University and Oregon Health and Science University collaborated to create two similar LibGuides for students who were involved in a joint program between the two universities (Ford and Zeigen, 2014). According to the two authors, the LibGuide has had positive impacts as they are now jointly called to faculty meetings that discuss library matters.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa

Bangani

Tshetsha

2018

Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication

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Purpose This paper uses co-ownership as a proxy for determining the extent of collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach This is a quantitative study that uses webometrics techniques to establish collaboration on LibGuides among librarians in public universities in South Africa. The LibGuide pages of all public universities in the country are visited. Co-ownership of those LibGuides is established by going through the list of co-owners usually situated on the right-hand side menu bar. The data are divided into 16 Excel spreadsheets, each representing a South African public university with LibGuides. Findings The results show that only 8.1 per cent or 95 of 1,166 LibGuides are co-owned, whereas in 9.4 per cent (109 of 1,166) of LibGuides, the ownership reverts to the host library, as there are no authors indicated. Only 34 of 95 or 35.8 per cent of co-owned LibGuides are cross-campus or inter-campus collaborations suggesting that there is very little cross-pollination of ideas between different campuses of the same universities in South Africa. Research limitations/implications This study will lead to a better understanding of the extent of collaboration between librarians in Africa, generally, but specifically in South Africa. In addition, it poses a challenge to library managers to develop strategies that promote and nurture a culture of collaboration between and among librarians to avoid unnecessary duplication. The recommendations of this study can be used to improve collaboration between and among librarians. The biggest limitation of this study is that it did not look into the attitudes, constraints and impediments of collaboration between and among librarians. This area, however, is recommended for further research. Practical implications The implication of these results is that there is a duplication of LibGuides, effort and time across different campuses of the same universities, as some universities have a number of LibGuides on the same subject areas across the institutions. There is very little cross-pollination of ideas between various universities as reflected by a lack of inter-university LibGuides in the country. Social implications Duplication of LibGuides does not assist the users as it only adds to the information overload rather than assisting them by streamlining the information. Originality/value This study may well be the first study of its nature in the world. It is the view of the authors that this study will not only close the gap in the literature on LibGuides but also explain the use of Web 2.0 tools in libraries in developing countries as collaboration tools. It will add another perspective to the discourse about the collaboration in library and information science generally. This paper may lead to further research on the collaboration efforts of practising librarians.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%