Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
2019
Abstract
Abstract:
In any given field of life, no one succeeds in abstraction. In the library as a workplace, there must always be an interaction between individuals with one having more experience than the other on some aspects of the job in other to impact such knowledge and experiences on the other with the intention to build the individuals career, satisfaction and overall development of the organisation through mentoring. This guidance and directing process is known as mentoring which can be either formal or informal. This study focuses on aspects and outcome of mentoring female professional (academic) librarians in some selected academic libraries in the South Western region of Nigeria.
The descriptive survey method was adopted for this study. It entailed selecting twelve (12) universities as the sample for the study were total enumeration of the sample size of 103 female professional librarians was used. The results from the analyzed data in the questionnaire show that both formal and informal mentoring is practiced in the universities studied; the gender of the mentor has no significant influence over the mentoring process (this might be as a result of the academic background of the respondents as they were highly learned: Masters Degree holders and PhD holders); and that mentoring is effective in the career development of the female library professional.
Developing a feasible policy for mentoring activities, organizing workshops on the advantages of mentoring and the proper evaluation of the mentoring process are some of the recommendations put forward from this study.