Why mentoring? : a study of the pre-implementation practices among NZ LIS professionals and organisations involved in mentoring

Abstract

This research project has attempted to comprehensively demonstrate the "before" or pre-implementation phases of setting up a mentoring scheme in New Zealand Library and Information Services (NZ LIS) — that is before the widely accepted phases of identification, matching and the training of mentors and mentees. By investigating how NZ LIS professionals and organisations have come to decide upon mentoring, the project has (1) created a point of reference for the NZ LIS community that clearly demonstrates how and why mentoring becomes the professional support and development scheme of choice and, (2) by means of a conceptual framework, identified the "best practice" risk-management and pre-implementation factors that should be considered before embarking on such an activity. Employing an online questionnaire that used a combination of qualitative and quantitative questions, data was gathered, tabulated and then analysed to provide the findings of the research.