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The purpose of this study was to explore the current practices of information literacy instruction in the libraries of universities in Pakistan. The research method consisted of a quantitative approach using a structured questionnaire for empirical data collection, which was sent to the universities and degree awarding institutions recognised by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. The collected data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (SPSS version-24). Both the descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation) and inferential (Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney U statistic) testing were applied for analysing the data. The findings of the study show that 63% of the responding university libraries offer information literacy (IL) education mostly to new students and this ranges from basic to advanced skills. Face-to-face delivery is the most popular IL delivery method. The IL instruction appears to take place in library training rooms. The outcome of this study will help the Library and Information Sciences (LIS) schools, library associations, and universities comprehend the present status of information literacy instructions in the libraries of Pakistani universities.

The purpose of this study was to explore the current practices of information literacy instruction in the libraries of universities in Pakistan. The research method consisted of a quantitative approach using a structured questionnaire for empirical data collection, which was sent to the universities and degree awarding institutions recognised by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. The collected data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (SPSS version-24). Both the descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation) and inferential (Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney U statistic) testing were applied for analysing the data. The findings of the study show that 63% of the responding university libraries offer information literacy (IL) education mostly to new students and this ranges from basic to advanced skills. Face-to-face delivery is the most popular IL delivery method. The IL instruction appears to take place in library training rooms. The outcome of this study will help the Library and Information Sciences (LIS) schools, library associations, and universities comprehend the present status of information literacy instructions in the libraries of Pakistani universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic librarians’ role is progressing from service provider to educator who are active contributors in curricular support in higher education. This paper is a part of PhD study aiming to know the professional development of library professionals and finding out status and prospects of information literacy (IL) integration in higher educational institutes. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from the universities of Pakistan. This research included all the university central libraries of higher educational institutes recognized by Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. The response was received from 138 central libraries of HEC recognized institutes. The findings revealed that more than half of the library professionals have studied IL course during their LIS education and majority of the professional staff had attended workshops and seminar on IL during last two years. Further, majority of academic librarians have clarity regarding core concepts of information literacy instruction and 50% showed their interest in integrating IL instructions into the curriculum and developing online IL tutorials. The study revealed regarding the status of IL course that IL instruction was not integrated in majority of the universities as a credit course and normally the information literacy course was offered as noncredit course. The academic libraries suggested that IL course should be a credit bearing stand-alone course and should be integrated with main curriculum of higher educational institutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to know the perception of postgraduate (PG) students of Public Sector University of Islamabad about information literacy (IL). It was also intended to explore the need and importance of information literacy in the opinion of PG students. To meet the purpose, study was conducted in multiple phases. At first, a comprehensive literature review was done. On second step, a semi structured survey questionnaire was developed to collect the data from respondents. A sample of two hundred PG students was selected and the useable response rate was 155(78%). Results of the study revealed that majority (52%) of the respondents were not much familiar with the concept of information literacy. Similarly, majority (88%) of the participants had not received any training on information literacy. However, major part of the respondents considered the information literacy program as an important program to meet their research as skills as well as academic needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are more than 285 million blind and visually impaired people in the world, 90% of whom live in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a study on visually impaired school teachers in Pakistan in order to examine how they identify, explore, select, organize, create, present, assess and apply information (IFLA’s Information Literacy Empowering Eight model) in teaching and everyday life. Interviews were conducted in January 2015 with 55 visually impaired teachers in 10 schools for the blind located in the province of Khyber PukhtunKhwa, Pakistan. The study also explores their ability to find, evaluate, and apply pedagogical information. Collected data revealed information on different aspects of information literacy skills. Although basic skills of the studied population were assessed; the study found that visually impaired teachers are highly skilled in terms of organizing the information and they prefer to take personal responsibility while searching for required information. They were found less skilled in using and apply new tools for information searching and lacking in ability to present the data effectively. This is the first research on the information literacy skills of visually impaired teachers in Pakistan. Results are useful for planners and experts to integrate IFLA’s E8 model of information literacy into several courses taught at the blind schools in order to enable the disadvantaged community to benefit from the information literacy skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]