Early career academics’ understanding of library language. A study in a university setting in Bangladesh
| Date | 30 August 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-03-2019-0034 |
| Published date | 30 August 2019 |
| Pages | 171-187 |
| Author | Shamima Yesmin,S.M. Zabed Ahmed |
Early career academics’
understanding of library language
A study in a university setting in Bangladesh
Shamima Yesmin
Noakhali Science and Technology University, Noakhali, Bangladesh, and
S.M. Zabed Ahmed
Department of Information Science and Library Management,
University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to empiricallyexamine the understanding of library terminologies
by early career faculty members in a newly established rural university setting at the south coast of
Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach –A campus-wide survey was conductedusing a structured
questionnaire consistedof demographic questions and 35 multiple-choice questions on libraryterminologies.
The multiple-choicequestions asked faculty members to selectthe correct answer from a set of five answers.
Findings –The findings indicate that early career university teachers lack adequate understanding of
library terms; in fact,many of them either gave incorrect answers or was unsure about the term. It was found
that faculty members hadrelatively better understandings of commonly used library terminologies,but they
had real difficulties comprehending computer and technology-related terms. Significant differences were
observedfor some of the terms in case of their age, designation and teachingexperience.
Originality/value –This current studyis unique in two ways: first, this is the first time an effort has been
made to empiricallyexamine the understanding of library terminologiesby early career faculty members; and
second,this study was conducted at a university in Bangladesh where the first language is not English.
Keywords Bangladesh, Universities, Faculty members, Public university, Jargons,
Library technical terms
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Academic libraries use numerous terminologies to identify the key resources and services
that they offer. Academic library users, particularly the faculty members,need to
understand them well enough to make effectiveuse of these resources in academic settings.
They also need to cascade their knowledge of such resources and services to students and
peers (Sanches, 2018). Understanding of library technical terms is immensely important
particularly in today’s digital environment where many new nomenclatures have been
introduced to the library literature over the past two decades. Studies have indicated that
university students had real difficulties in understanding many library terminologies, and
this lack of understanding affects their success rates for finding the required information
from libraries. This situation also raises the serious question of whether faculty members,
specifically those who are new or at the early stage of their career, understand library
technical terms. Thepurpose of this paper is thus to explore early career university teachers’
understanding of library language. This current study is unique in two ways: first, this is
the first time an effort has been made to empirically examine the level of understanding of
Understanding
of library
language
171
Received9 March 2019
Revised24 May 2019
26July 2019
Accepted30 July 2019
GlobalKnowledge, Memory and
Communication
Vol.69 No. 3, 2020
pp. 171-187
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2514-9342
DOI 10.1108/GKMC-03-2019-0034
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-9342.htm
library terminologies by early careeruniversity teachers; and second, it was conducted at a
university in Bangladeshwhere the first language is not English.
This study was conducted at a rural publicuniversity located at the south coast region of
Bangladesh. The university started its academicactivities in 2006. Although the university
mainly caters for science and technology-relatedsubjects, there are separate faculties of law,
business, education,social sciences and humanities. With a total student population of 6,436
(UGC, 2017), six faculties,two institutes and 28 departments, most of the facultymembers in
the university are young recent graduates from universities across the country. At the time
of this present study, 271 full-time faculty members were used at the university. The
university had a small library with approximately 10,000 books, 200 print-journal issues,
and access to some e-books and e-journals provided through a UGC-subscribed gateway
system.
The understanding of library language was found to be problematic for many users.
However, most of the user studies conducted in this researcharea are confined to developed
countries where the first language is English. This studyis aimed at investigating early
career university teachers’understanding of library terminologies in a developing country
perspective in Bangladesh.The specific objectives are to:
identify the library technical terminologies that are mostly understood by new
faculty members;
find out the library terms that the early career university teachers have an incorrect
understanding of or are unfamiliar with;
determine the differences in understanding of terminologies in term of faculty
members’gender, age, designation, years of teaching experience and their exposure
to library instruction class or information literacy program; and
recommend how the university libraries can collaborate with faculty members,
especially those who are new to teaching and contribute toward their understanding
of technical terms.
Literature review
There have been no empirical studies on understanding of library terminologies by faculty
members but there are some studies on users’understanding of library languages. In an
early study conducted severalyears before the web was launched, Naismith and Stein (1989)
adopted 20 multiple-choicequestions to measure students’understanding of commonlyused
terms used in reference interviews and handouts written by librarians. A total of 100
students from freshman English classes at Carnegie Mellon University participated in this
test. The results showed that nearly50 per cent of the time students were not able to identify
the correct definition for the libraryterms. The majority of respondents failed to identify the
following terms correctly: multi-volume set, proceedings, command search and citations,
whereas most students responded correctly with the following terms, namely, call number,
bound journals, microform and interlibrary loan (ILL). When some of the students were
asked to verbalize their thoughts as they selected answers, they often admittedto guessing
the answer. The authors concluded that there was clearly a communication problem
between librarians and users, and they proposed several options to close this gap. It is
important to note here that Naismith and Stein’s study was carried out almost 30 years ago
and that many of today’s university students may not understand some of the terms, i.e.
multi-volume set,library rep, bound journals, microform, etc., used in thispaper.
GKMC
69,3
172
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