Mentoring of young librarians in South East Nigeria for improved research and scholarly publications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of mentoring of young librarians in South East Nigeria so as to improve their research and scholarly publications. Design/methodology/approach The study confined its scope to 135 librarians in the five different federal universities in South East Nigeria. In all, 100 (80 percent) of the librarians were sampled. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire which contained 30 items derived from the research questions. The descriptive survey research design was used as research method. Librarians were grouped into young librarians (assistant librarian and librarian II) and higher librarians (librarian I, senior librarian, principal librarian, deputy university librarian and university librarian); for a comprehensive analysis of the study. Findings The findings of the study among others reveals that young librarians are a bit knowledgeable and conversant about the term “mentoring” but not equitable when compared to that of other higher librarians in matters of scholarly publication. Also there is evidence of mentoring in place in these libraries for boosting the research prowess of librarians, but in an informal form. The librarians believed that most times the mentee’s inability to open up during interaction, and unconstructive criticisms from mentors to their mentees; are serious challenges to successful mentoring for improved scholarly publications. Originality/value Research studies focusing on mentoring young librarians on research and scholarly publications in Nigeria, are rare. Furthermore, librarians are not conversant with the concept of mentoring and which mentoring practices and programs are currently in place in their libraries to boost their research prowess. Also, adopting a mentor and what to expect from both mentors and mentees concerning research publications are salient areas explored in the work. This study will raise important issues that relate to research publications of both librarians and other academic researchers especially in this research impact-factor driven world of ours.