IATUL 2023 Slides

Type

Presentation

Abstract

Universities play a critical role in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through their mandate of teaching, education, research, and community engagements. Through their support of the mother body, university libraries provide access to information towards the achievement of SDGs. One way of achieving the SDGs is through citizen science. Citizen science is the involvement of community members in scientific research. The success of citizen science projects toward achieving SDGs has been vastly reported in the literature. Data produced from citizen science projects can be used towards achieving SDGs. This is where academic librarians can play a critical role in ensuring that the right information is provided to the right people and is fit for purpose. Academic librarians, as knowledge hubs, have the knowledge and expertise to support SDGs. The study aims to propose a framework that university libraries can adopt to embed citizen science in their service offerings to assist in achieving SDGs. This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed-method research design to source views from academic librarians in university libraries in South Africa. The findings of the study revealed that academic librarians are willing to support and promote citizen science activities. However, there are potential pitfalls that may hamper their intentions. The study developed a proposed framework that academic librarians can adopt and embed citizen science activities.

Publication Date

3-16-2023

Conference Name

IATUL 2023: 43rd International Association of University Libraries Annual Conference. Dubai & Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (March 13-16, 2023)

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Keywords

Citizen science, University libraries, Sustainable Development Goals, academic librarians, crowdsourcing

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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