Do academic staff at two New Zealand polytechnics collaborate with their respective polytechnic libraries?

Abstract

The purpose of academic libraries is to support student learning and academic teaching. Academic faculty and library collaboration sets students on a path to becoming information literate and life-long learners. The purpose of this study was to look at existing collaborative behaviours at two New Zealand polytechnics between the academic staff and their libraries and examine the influences that affect these working collaborations. An online survey was emailed to academic teaching staff from two polytechnics. Results showed four faceted collaborative behaviours that ranged from a large number of low-end coordinated and cooperative tasks of collaboration, through to slightly fewer, but highly significant collaborative behaviours for integrated information literacy instruction and finally a small amount of collaboration for curriculum integration was revealed. The survey results revealed that lack of time is the main barrier to collaborative working relationships at the two polytechnics. The strongest factors influencing collaborations between academic teaching staff and their polytechnic librarians are the personal and professional working traits that the library staff exhibit. Communication was also a significant influence upon these relationships.