Information literacy skills are a necessity among university students, hence information literacy instructors should keep abreast with the 21st century information literacy curriculum, its delivery and assessment. The study investigated information literacy training and its needs at NUL. The purpose was to investigate information literacy curriculum, delivery and assessment at the National University of Lesotho. Guided by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) information literacy framework for higher education, the study sought to establish the extent to which the NUL information literacy programme considers ACRL frames or any other standard of relevance. The study adopted a qualitative approach using a phenomenology research design. Data was collected from NUL Subject Librarians through focus group discussions and one on one interview with the Lecturers. Data was generated from structured interview questions; analysed manually and presented in an interpretative form such that participants’ responses were tabulated under subheadings corresponding to the items from the research instruments that were formulated from the research questions. Major findings are that there is no information literacy programme in place hence there is no specific curriculum at NUL, as a result there is also no benchmarking. NUL Subject Librarians take initiative to improvise information literacy content; they use lecture mode and library tours as their predominant mode of information literacy teaching and learning. Although there is a Communication Skills Course meant to assist students with information and communication skills, students struggle to search for information; they are even unable to consult a variety of information sources. The study therefore recommends NUL Library to establish a clear information literacy training programme that is delivered in collaboration with academic staff. It is further recommended that Subject Librarians should contribute to the content of the Communication Skills Course.

Knowledge is now considered the most important organizational resource, surpassing other resources like land and capital. It has, therefore, been acknowledged that knowledge can play an important role in ensuring an organization’s competitive edge. The purpose of this study was to investigate if knowledge sharing is being used to improve service delivery at the National University of Lesotho’s Thomas Mofolo Library. The researcher held the view that Librarians at Thomas Mofolo Library have different sets of skills which, if combined, could improve service delivery. By not sharing and retaining this existing wealth of knowledge, the researcher claimed that when librarians retire or resign from work, they will certainly take with them the knowledge they possess and the result of this knowledge loss is that the Library may be plagued by an inability to learn from the past experiences, which leads to reinvented wheels, unlearned lessons and the pattern of repeated mistakes. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in the case study design in order to allow for multiple methods of data collection. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires were administered to all librarians who were available at the time and purposive sampling was used to determine interview participants. Out of the 25 questionnaires administered, 15 were returned, providing a response rate of 60%. The data collected by means of questionnaires was processed using Microsoft Access and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software (Version 17). The results of analysis were exported into Microsoft Excel for visual presentation and reporting of the results. The data from the interview sessions was analyzed manually by content analysis, using the notes that were taken by the researcher from the respondents during the interview sessions. The findings pointed to the fact that knowledge sharing does occur at TML, although mostly in an informal manner. This was largely due to a number of impediments such as lack of trust and the absence of motivations and rewards. The study concluded by recommending a number of initiatives that could be implemented in order to retain knowledge within the Library. The recommendations included developing a knowledge management strategy and formalizing knowledge sharing by formulating the desired policies. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

The study aims to assess performance of Technical Reports as a channel of information for development in the Lesotho context. It concurrently evaluates how a specialized information unit of the Institute of Southern African Studies (lSAS) has performed in its obligation to devise adequate mechanisms for managing the report literature and meeting the development-related needs of users. In order to achieve that aim, the study contextualized development as a process, state, and condition and highlighted some development indicators for Lesotho. Agriculture and gender were selected as sectors of development. Global conferences, as one of the many development strategies that generate technical reports heavily, were used as a benchmark. In the performance and impact assessment methodologies, case study techniques were applied with ISAS as a site and one unit ofanalysis. Technical Reports (TRs) on Lesotho were studied. Triangulation approaches were applied in sourcing data. The academics, information workers, government officials, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and aid agencies based in Lesotho were surveyed. Research questions that guided the study centred on the productivity, distribution of technical reports, their management by intermediaries, use, non-use and the effects thereon. Seven types ofTechnical Reports feature in the development process, namely Academic, Project, Conference, Survey, Enquiry, Official and Special Committee Reports. Technical Reports are produced at varying levels depending on needs and approaches to development by producers or commissioning bodies. Academic Reports are authored mostly by the academics. The Government, Aid agencies and NGOs produce widely through external consultants/experts, who utilize centres such as ISAS where commissioning bodies do not have information services. TRs productivity is high and diverse in Lesotho, but capacity to manage the output is seemingly low, and hence under-utilization results; ISAS's out-dated mission, lack of, or limited resources and dejure national support in the form of acts and statutes affect the Institute's Technical Reports' services. Production is gender biased, thus making for imbalance in reporting on development. Agriculture as a sector is heavily researched and reported about, but the benefits to the populace are either few or non-existent. Restricted materials are estimated at 30%, but most ofthe TRs are unaccounted for. Hoarding and poor records or information management leave a vacuum that leads to a duplication of previous studies and production. The study confirmed that technical reports are required by all the surveyed groups. Technical Reports are not ofa transient nature even though they reach a peak oftopicality and use at certain periods. Where the channel conveys factual data timeously, there are developmental benefits. Low or non-use is common where there are no specialized information services especially within the civil service. Such negative factors cause delays and infrequent currency, inadequate reporting and erroneous budgetary allocations, for example. Seeminglythere is no clarity on what restricted, secret and limited materials mean. Major recommendations were made. One concerned an integrated approach to managing the channel. This would involve preparing a Manual for the production of Technical Reports which would clarify how to prepare them; for instance, the caliber of personneVexperts who should author reports, the conditions to be observed, the timeliness production, reliability of data used, and centres that would be acknowledged to then qualify for commensurate financial and other support. The other proposes that the envisaged National Research Council be given the powers to enforce the guidelines ofthe manual and related functions. The last recommends assigning to the documentalistsfor classified Technical Reports, the role of managing classified items. Consideration should also be given to important issues raised in the study, being the role of Information, Communication and Technologies (lCTs), sectors of development to be attended to, training and networking in technical report\s. Further studies are also recommended mainly for the causes and effects of the closures of information services that managed technical reports' in southern Africa; longitudinal studies on the impact of non-use oftechnical reports in major sectors ofdevelopment like Agriculture; comparative studies on the impact of specialized centres in the developed and developing countries. Further action is urged under the aegis ofbodies like the Standing Conference ofEastem, Central and Southern African Librarians (SCECSAL), Standing Conference of National and University Librarians. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Extant literature on academic identities claims that academic identities not only represent academics’ subjectively construed understandings of who they are but they also derive from roles, statuses, membership in disciplinary communities and characteristics that make academics unique individuals. Even so, research focusing exclusively on academic identities is unprecedented in the Lesotho higher education (HE) sector; therefore, this study describes how narratives of experiences and meanings attached to being an academic relate to the construction of academic identities at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). How do reflexive interpretations of cultural expectations tied to membership in disciplinary communities influence the negotiation of academic identities and work behaviour of academic staff? How do descriptions of the (mis)alignment between job facets, individual values and expectations influence the meaningfulness and fulfilment for academics’ professional self-concepts? How do stories of internalised meanings of involvement and symbolic identification with NUL influence academic identity trajectories? Being interpretive in nature, this study used narrative interviews to collect data from a sample of thirty-one academics from NUL. The findings revealed that ‘who’ an academic is derives from meanings of ‘lived experiences’ of work enjoyment, applicability, exploitation, facilitation, multitasking, prestige and burnout. The findings also showed that academic identities were negotiated by reflexively interpreting the cultural expectation of ‘finishing work on time’ through work behaviours such as managing time, working overtime, self-motivation, underperforming, balancing roles and seeking work assistance. The participants’ narratives also revealed that the fulfilment for academics’ professional self-concepts derived from autonomy, accomplishments, learning, interdependencies, work environment, students’ attitudes and recognition. Lastly, the study showed that participants’ academic identity trajectories were influenced by altruism, passion, options, disillusions and relations. Overall, the ‘narratives of experience’ reiterated that academic identities at NUL were contextualised constructs of ‘work experiences’, ‘membership in communities’, ‘job attitudes’ and ‘self -discovery,’ based on the self as a unique individual, a group member and a role holder. Consistent with the interactionist perspective, academic identities at NUL represent structurally, culturally and institutionally located stories of experiences and meanings derived from the work situation, the setting and social relationships that academics participate in daily at NUL. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)