Overview

This book offers a fresh perspective on understanding university library work with international users in North America. It investigates what librarians, international students, and international scholars perceive the role of the university library to be in internationalization in higher education. It also explores the phenomenon of internationalization itself as it is lived and experienced by both librarians and international users. Personal definitions and experiences of internationalization offered by librarians and international users include viewing internationalization as the broadening of knowledge on multiple levels, the idea of seeing oneself as part of a greater whole, and the building of international research connections. Both librarians and international users describe elements of internationalization such as exposure, awareness, engagement, empathy, and transcending boundaries. Inherent contradictions are present as well, such as the stronger emphasis on defining differences rather than similarities and the disconnect between inward and outward looking aspects of internationalization. Finally, this book connects theoretical perspectives concerning the phenomenon of internationalization to the practice of academic librarianship in North America. It does this by presenting what librarians in both the United States and Canada think about working with international users in terms of benefits, challenges, and best practices. Practical lessons learned include the need to move beyond focusing solely on the linguistic and cultural challenges of working with international users to also consider the positive aspects of working with them, such as widening worldviews and expanding personal knowledge.

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9780810891838

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Reviews

This book is the result of an online survey done with a limited number of foreign students and scholars enrolled in two border universities of Canada and the United States in Ontario and New York, respectively. It was followed by in-depth interviews with 10 librarians of two universities, as well as a few foreign students and scholars. The results show that there is a need of internationalization of academic library services due to the changing impact of the introduction of technology in libraries, including databases and the internet. Views of three parties who participated in the survey are important and can help to define the roles foreign students, international scholars of various universities, and academic librarians working with them can play in internationalization of libraries in higher education. There are seven well-written chapters in the book and a good selected bibliography...This book is recommended for all academic libraries with a large foreign student population and international visiting scholars. American Reference Books Annual

Author Information

Karen Bordonaro is the Teaching and Learning Librarian /Liaison Librarian for Applied Linguistics and Modern Languages at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario

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