Library Enhances Electronic Resources Information Literacy Training And Collection Building

BY ERIC SINDABI

The fast growing use of digital devices to access information has necessitated an intensified user education programme in the University Library Department.

In order to facilitate easy access and maximum use of available electronic resources, the department offers a variety of information literacy training sessions to undergraduate and post-graduate students, academic staff and library staff.

The training programmes include; accessing and retrieving Institutional Repository materials like theses, research papers and University publications. Accessing and retrieving past examination papers database and access and retrieval skills of the electronic books, journals and databases acquired by the University. Other related skills acquired in the training programme include; off-campus access of information, on-line citation methods, publishing in Open Access Journals and research ethics like ant-plagiarism.

In her special library article for the 47^th graduation ceremony of the University published in the Egerton University NewsLink the University Librarian Mrs Janegrace Kinyanjui revealed that the department had carried out 33 training sessions during the 2022/2023 financial year where 500 library users had participated. The Librarian added that over twenty e.books databases and journals had recently been acquired while over five hundred theses and dissertations had been uploaded so far on the University’s Institutional Repository platform.

The In-charge Library Systems Mr.Andrew Njuguna during a recent training session, said that the Library Resource Centre section which conducts the information literacy training programmes had increased its performance contract targets in order to meet the user education programmes demand.

“Both undergraduate and post-graduate students are scheduled to undergo the training sessions. Class representatives arrange for trainings in small groups during free time while academic staff undertake training virtually after liaising with Chairpersons of Departments”, said Njuguna, adding that it was also important for the library staff to take part in the training programmes for them to be more familiar with digital library services in order for them to enhance their service delivery to library users.