Mentoring as a Predictor of Cataloguing Attitude among Early-Career Librarians

A Survey of Federal Universities in South-East Nigeria

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the effect of mentoring on early-career librarians’ attitude towards cataloguing in federal universities in South-East Nigeria. The study specifically aimed to: identify mentoring programmes to which early-career librarians are exposed for skill development in cataloguing, examine their attitude towards cataloguing, and determine the influence of mentoring on their attitude towards cataloguing. Using quantitative method and census survey, data were collected from 63 respondents through questionnaire, and analyzed using SPSS (version 25). Findings revealed that the respondents have experienced different mentoring programmes, with one-on-one mentoring (90.5%), supervisory mentoring (88.9%), job rotation (87.3%), conferences/seminars/workshops (85.7%) and staff orientation (84.1%) being the most practiced, while reverse mentoring (28.6%), external mentoring (23.8%), and e-mentoring, (23.8%) were the least practised. The observed mean 7.90 suggests a moderate-level of exposure to mentoring indicating positive inclination to mentoring. Findings further revealed that respondents demonstrated positive attitude towards cataloguing, with overall grand mean of 4.54. Regression analysis indicated that mentoring had significantly positive, small-sized effect on early-career librarians’ attitude towards cataloguing (β = 0.248). The study concludes that mentoring positively impacts early-career librarians’ attitude towards cataloguing, but not to be solely relied on for shaping early-career librarians’ attitude towards cataloguing. Findings have implications for policy formulation, LIS education and training, professional practice, and research. Among others recommendations, the study highlighted need for university library administrators to explore and implement innovative strategies that can positively influence early-career librarians’ attitude towards cataloguing, thus complementing the impacts of the existing mentoring programmes.