Designing an LIS Undergraduate Internship Module

This study's main goal was to evaluate the Library and Information Science (LIS) internship program from the perspectives of all stakeholders, including students, faculty members, and practitioners from various LIS degree-offering universities and libraries in Bangladesh. The focus was primarily on academic libraries and secondarily on public and special libraries as the main internship sites for LIS students in Bangladesh, excluding school libraries and archives due to limited opportunities, underdevelopment, and access restrictions. Using a mixed-methods approach, qualitative data were collected through interviews with LIS students who completed their internships to understand their internship experiences. Quantitative data were gathered from LIS faculty members and library practitioners using a semi-structured questionnaire to gather their opinions on different library services and functions to be included in the internship. Findings indicated that although the internship met students’ expectations to some extent, the program had certain limitations because industries conducted it in their own way, and the program lacked a structured module for interns. Nonetheless, both educators and practitioners emphasized the need for a structured internship module in the LIS curriculum and provided their opinions on various functions and services of different library sections that could be incorporated into such a module. Based on the perspectives of all stakeholders, this study proposed a structured internship module for the undergraduate LIS curriculum in Bangladesh.

Curriculum · Educational program · Focus group · Higher education · Internship · Perception · Public university · Qualitative research · Library Science and Administration · Library Science and Information Literacy · Library Science and Information Systems