Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / Research, aimed at strengthening the economy and driving development, with the view to address South Africa’s numerous challenges and/or advance knowledge, generally, exists in abundance. It has highlighted the crucial role played by institutions of higher learning, such as universities, in this regard. In particular, the contribution of academic libraries in supporting the country’s agenda, with regard to its teaching and research goals, has come to the fore. Academic libraries have been portrayed, quite correctly, as the legitimate heart of the university, for majority of scholars rely heavily on their collections and services in their quest to develop new knowledge. However, the role played by these important facilities in supporting postgraduate students and researchers in South Africa is yet to be comprehensively examined. With a view to partly address this existent knowledge gap, this study examines the interaction between the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC’s) library and the institution’s Faculty of Community and Health Sciences’ postgraduate students and researchers. In accomplishing this task, I explore the skill set and competencies required of the subject librarian to best support the research needs of postgraduate students and researchers at UWC’s Faculty of Community and Health Sciences. I also investigate the perceptions and expectations of postgraduate students and researchers vis-à-vis the institution’s library. Additionally, this study explores the innovative measures adopted by UWC’s library in its quest to provide competent and satisfactory services to its postgraduate students and researchers. For its theoretical framework, this study employs the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), also known as Roger’s model. This framework has been used to explore how innovative research services can be established and offered to support postgraduate students and researchers’ needs. This study employs a mixed methods approach and makes use of various data collection instruments, namely, survey questionnaires and interviews. The collected data has been analyzed through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The transcribed interviews have been analyzed thematically. The findings indicated some gaps between postgraduate students’ and researchers’ expectations for library’s research support services, research workshops and skills and competencies of a subject librarian. The findings also revealed postgraduate students’ and researchers’ perception of the library’s research support services, research workshops and subject librarians’ skills and competencies to be fulfilled. Even though many of the identified needs are currently being addressed by UWC library, several potential areas for improvement were identified. One of the major challenges is the awareness of the library services and facilities the library offers to support research. Other challenges that postgraduates’ students and researchers are facing is that they are often not aware how to search for information, easy access to the library’s resources and the expertise of the subject librarians.

This dissertation reports on an analysis conducted to establish the electronic research needs experienced by postgraduate students at higher education institutions within an increasing electronic research environment. Innovation and improvements in technology have caused research students to approach the library with a whole range of needs and expectations undreamed of in the nonelectronic library. A quantitative research instrument was mainly used to gather data, together with the results from a user survey. This study is therefore regarded as a quantitative study. From both the literature survey and research for this study it became clear that postgraduate students in South Africa and throughout the world experience similar e-research needs with regard to primary data sharing, transfer of data and computation, e-access, e-communication, e-training and e-publishing. By taking the specific needs of postgraduate students into account, the library will be able to create an electronic research environment distinguished by ease of use and access - the principal and most valued research partner in a postgraduate students’ pursuit of academic distinction and success. / Dissertation (M.Ed (Computer-integrated Education))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted