APPRAISAL OF INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRAMS IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES OF KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA
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Date
2024
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Department of Library and Information Science, Univeristy of Peshawar
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This study was undertaken on information literacy programs to understand their status in the university libraries of KP. The overall findings demonstrate that, although ILPs are active in the universities, their development is quite basic and sporadic, rather than being completely structured or institutionally embedded. Instruction in IL is provided through the use of conventional methods such as workshops, seminars, orientation sessions and individualized or small group sessions, which signify the involvement of librarians in meeting students' information needs. IL is still not part of the curriculum, and collaboration between librarians and teachers is weak. As a consequence, librarians appear to provide IL instructions on a voluntary or proactive basis, instead of being institutionalized teaching practices. So far as the content is concerned, the programs are largely oriented toward fundamental and routine skills, including citation and referencing, avoidance of plagiarism, ethics of using information resources and elementary search skills for accessing the databases. While these skills are quite relevant, the programs provide very little attention to higher-level information competencies, namely, critical evaluation of information sources, analytical abilities, synthesis and advanced search strategies, which clearly point towards the programs being more geared toward academic compliance and technical skills, than toward the greater skills and research practices. The practice of evaluation is identified as the weakest component in the implementation of IL programs, with minimal use of systematic measures like pre- and post-testing, rubric-based assignments, peer reviewing and case studies, and maximum usage of informal methods such as satisfaction surveys. Minimal faculty involvement and utilizing the results of evaluation for program development have also not been encouraging. Demographical and institutional characteristics contributed to explaining some of the results and trends observed. The instruction can readily be embraced by young and mid-career librarians working in universities, but it lacks instruction delivery and professional experience. Gender ratio imbalance and dominance of public universities in the sector clearly reflect the structural features of the higher education system in the region, which can also be considered the contributing factors for the present state of IL programs development. All in all, it can be inferred that IL programs being implemented in the universities are functional but in their very early stage of development and have not emerged as integrated academic services in the libraries, rather as supplementary services. Librarians' concern to provide support to their students in obtaining and using information is laudable, but institutional embedding of IL programs, their incorporation into academic disciplines, their broader scope of content and their evaluation remain significant areas for development, if the libraries have to establish effective IL programs.