A review of citizen librarianship in academic libraries in Kenya

Abstract

Citizen librarianship is the involvement of ordinary library users to create, review and share library services and content. Citizen librarianship emerged from the concept of citizen science in which non-experts are actively involved in and contribute to scientific research projects. The purpose of this chapter is to assess the understanding and extent of use of citizen librarianship in academic libraries in Kenya; identify the citizen media used in academic libraries in Kenya; analyse how the academic library users in Kenya interact with citizen media in their library spaces; examine the impact of citizen media on the effectiveness of academic libraries in Kenya; and propose a citizen librarianship model for academic libraries in Kenya. Primary data for the study on which this chapter is based was collected from the web sites of the libraries of all the chartered public and private universities in Kenya. Additional data was collected from key informant interviews with academic library directors and systems librarians in Kenya selected through information-oriented purposive sampling. The findings revealed that the majority of academic librarians in Kenya have never heard of the concepts of citizen science or citizen librarianship. Although citizen librarianship offers an important framework for users’ involvement in meeting their own information needs and those of their peers through citizen media, its application in Kenyan academic libraries is low. The findings of this study may be used by academic librarians to adopt citizen librarianship in their institutions.