Introduction to Advances in Library Practices in Higher Education: International Perspectives on Improving Student Engagement

Abstract

We are living in an electronic age, where everything that we want to know or are curious about is increasingly facilitated by the internet and search engines. Now, much of the world’s knowledge is at our fingertips. Students have unlimited access to information in the form of e-books, journals and other open sources. The value of a physical repository of knowledge is diminishing and the printing of material is becoming less compelling. It has been noted that college students spend as much time on the internet as they do while studying (Jones, 2002). The most pertinent question is whether the library is still considered an important source of information to students? Can we imagine a university without a library with just computers and a server room? The information highway is posing new challenges that the librarians have to deal with (Dunn, 2002; Rockman & Smith, 2002). In the past, gatekeepers like the librarian decided what a student should read, depending on their level of study and their comprehension power. The picture has altered and now students decide what exactly they should read with the click of their computers. Leaders in higher education institutions are skeptical as to how much they should actually invest in buying books, how many shelves to create to stack them and whether the collection of books is going to be an indicator of the academic quality of that institution. This book talks about a vital subject as to how much and in what ways a library can engage a student to create information literacy. Various interventions have been discussed as case studies in colleges and universities from Canada to India. Student-centered workshops have been designed along with university partnerships with a writing center as well as the role of a library as a source of socio-economic transformation in Africa. The experiences shared by the authors in this book will be a valuable resource for librarians across the world as they increase their collaborative efforts to promote the value of information literacy for students.

Citation

Sengupta, E., Blessinger, P. and Cox, M.D. (2020), "Introduction to Advances in Library Practices in Higher Education: International Perspectives on Improving Student Engagement", Sengupta, E., Blessinger, P. and Cox, M.D. (Ed.) International Perspectives on Improving Student Engagement: Advances in Library Practices in Higher Education (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 26), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120200000026001