Placements through the Lens of Host-Supervisors and Librarianship Students: A Study of Monash University Library Experience

ABSTRACT

The paper presents students and host-supervisors’ perceptions of Monash University Library placement program. The study critically investigates what past placement students perceive as having been gained from the experience and how they see the experience facilitate their future career. In addition, the study also analyses what host-supervisors (library staff members) see as beneficial for placement students, themselves and the library. In this qualitative research, data collection was done through semi-structured individual interviews with participants. The results revealed that students and host-supervisors view placements as a means of putting theory into practice, and highly regard relationship building between placement students and host-supervisors. It was also found that teamwork is one of the host-supervisors’ expectations, but none of the students consider teamwork as their expectation. Host-supervisors also perceive the program as beneficial for placement students and the library, but not necessarily for themselves. In addition, students believe that placements facilitate their career planning. Both students and host-supervisors also put forward ideas for placement program improvements.

KEYWORDS:

• Work integrated learning
• WIL
• library
• placement
• university
• Australia
• teamwork

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the management and staff of Monash University Library, without whom this research would not be possible.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anita Dewi

Dr Anita Dewi is an education professional with a multidisciplinary background. She holds a PhD (Applied Linguistics) and MEd (TESOL) from Monash University, and MIM (Information Management and Librarianship) from the University of South Australia. Her areas of interest include work-integrated learning (WIL), librarianship, applied linguistics, education, and intercultural communication,. While working full-time as a Liaison Coordinator at Monash University Library, she is also a teaching associate at the Translation Studies programs of Monash University and the University of Western Australia. Anita can be reached at [email protected].

Diane L. Velasquez

Dr Diane L Velasquez is the Program Director and senior lecturer of the Information Management Program at the UniSA STEM, University of South Australia. She holds a BA in political science from San Jose State University, an MBA in management from Golden Gate University, a masters in library resources and information science from the University of Arizona, and a PhD in information science from the University of Missouri. Her research interests are in risk management and disaster recovery, romance genre and readers’ advisory, postgraduate course work students satisfaction, and evaluation and assessment of public library websites. Dr Velasquez can be reached at [email protected].