Opportunities and Challenges of Academic Librarians in Offering Information Literacy Skills Training to Freshmen

Abstract

The ‘catch them young' concept is a good foundation for developing lifelong learning skills that can be used beyond tertiary education. This is one of the ways of ‘making the book pay' in helping to create an informed society that would take part in the implementation of the Africa we want through the Africa Agenda 2063. A survey was undertaken on how libraries are supporting information literacy and research skills of students for a successful transition from primary and secondary to higher education. Twenty school libraries and 15 academic libraries were purposively selected to participate in the study. Telephone interviews were done with school, teachers, and academic librarians to understand the opportunities and challenges that they are encountering in imparting information literacy and research skills to students in preparing them for higher education in the digital era. The results revealed that there are information literacy programs in schools and universities and the modules are delivered by librarians.