Mentoring and its Impact on the Publication Output of Librarians in Selected Academic Libraries in South-West Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examined the possible role of mentoring in explaining the publication output of librarians in selected academic libraries. The paper sought to find out the number of papers that the academic librarians published annually, whether they are required to publish the same number of papers for promotion to particular grades as required of mainstream academics in their universities, whether they had mentors, and their perceptions of the impact of mentoring on their publication output. Data were collected from 66 academic librarians in four purposively selected universities in South-West Nigeria. Mentoring was perceived by the librarians to have a positive impact on their publication output, and that the major constraints on their publication efforts were their routine jobs and inability to conceptualise research topics. The study recommends that upcoming academic librarians should have mentors and collaborate with their senior colleagues until they are able to acquire the necessary skills to conceptualize research and publish quality papers. They should also transfer some of their routine duties to para-professionals in their libraries in order to be able to concentrate more on research-related activities such as reading extensively other peoples’ works.