Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

innovative services as an effort to enhance a
student’s capacity building and knowledge
development in a library environment. Notably,
various operational concepts such as social
networking; social bookmarking; social media and
participatory technologies have been used
interchangeably. These concepts are adopted in
describing innovative ways of sharing information
and exchanging tacit knowledge residing in human
minds and database repositories systems via a
defined system [9][11][5].
Retrospectively, some academic libraries,
particularly in the developed nations were no longer
seen as a ‘place’ filled with a physical collection,
but viewed as an integral learning ‘space’ where
knowledge is reconstructed, mounted and
distributed for better use [10][9]. As further noted
by Kwanya, Stilwell & Underwood [7, p70] and
Brophy [4, p29] serving users with the right
resources, using a variety of support services,
ranging from print to handheld computing tools
should become a service philosophy in many
academic libraries. This service philosophy has
encouraged academic libraries to become more
service orientated and look to innovative ways to
service their clients.
Faced with a challenge of justifying the usage of the
much-anticipated academic library subscribed
databases; a number of specialised virtual reference
assistances were introduced to attend to instant
questions and ready-reference answers [15][6][13].
Beck [3, p91] describes Virtual Reference (VR) as a
service-oriented model integrated in academic
libraries to enable “the use of computer and
communications technology to provide a remote
interaction between librarians and library users”.
Aimed to serve individuals learning needs with
immediacy, informality and interactivity, ‘Virtual
Reference Services’ (VRS) were introduced to
ensure that students are provided with proper
guidance in accessing and utilising academic
sources ethically [10][2]. These VRS are becoming
increasingly more important in connecting students
to the library, creating spaces where they can seek
assistance and understanding of library resources.
METHODOLOGY
A questionnaire was employed to gather data from
the study population of undergraduate students
registered across the 12 UNAM Library satellite
campuses countrywide. A positivism paradigm was
adapted to select the study participants using a
convenience sampling technique from a sample
population of undergraduate students who have been
at the university for more than 12 months. The
sample consisted of a total of 352 undergraduate
students who were found in the library enquiring
about library services at four user-centric areas: the
Reference Desk, Circulation Counter Desk, Student
Computing Services area and Subject Librarians
offices. The study was carried out over a 6 week
period. The data was captured and analysed in
SPSS, the descriptive statistics are used to answer
the research question.
FINDINGS
A total of 352 completed questionnaires were
received from the 515 that were distributed to the 12
various campuses. The number of questionnaires
distributed per campus was determined
proportionally to the number of undergraduate
students per campus. This study only targeted
undergraduate students. The most responses
received by a large margin was from the main
campus in Windhoek with 122 responses.
Out of the 352 responses, a total of 44.3% (156)
were made up of male respondents, while the
remaining 55.7% (196) were female. Because a
larger number of the UNAM population is made out
of females (62%) a higher representation of females
in this study was excepted. 58.8% of the
respondents, which is the largest representative
belonged to the age group of 20-23 years, followed
by those who were in the age bracket of 23-27 years
with a total of 10.5%. As expected, only 10.8% of
respondents’ belonged to the younger age category
of 16-19 years; an outcome which seems to
correspond with UNAM student profile.
The data revealed that 84.37% (297) of respondents
were busy studying towards an honours-degree
qualification; a four year undergraduate degree
which is the most common format in UNAM
programs. Respectively, 14.2% (50) of respondents
were busy with their diploma qualification which
can be completed either in two-years or three years
depending on the field of study, while 1.4% (5) of
respondents were busy with a certificate.
Respondents who were visiting the library more
than once a week were 51.0%, followed by 26.6%
of regular library visitors (on a daily-basis).
Notably, a smaller number of 1.4% were using the
library for the first time during the data collection
process period, while the remaining 7.1% belong to
the group who rarely visited the library.
Figure 1 (below) represents a summary of the types
of internet-based ‘hubs’ and communication devices
facilitating access to communication platforms and
internet-based resources. Results show that most of
participants were using laptops with internet
connections or mobile data (3G modems) (54.0%);
mobile phones (39.5%); and home/work based
computers (28.7%). A relatively lower usage of
iPad/tablets (10.5%), private based computers
(7.1%) and faculty based computers (6.0%) was
noted; an outcome which indicates that only 16.5%
relied on the library-based computers to access
Internet based information.
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