Riding the wave of information: library professionals’ opinion towards information literacy (IL) program in academic libraries of Pakistan

The present study investigated status, strategies to promote the IL programs, contribution of social media, and challenges to provide IL programs in the academic libraries of Pakistan. A concurrent mixed-method technique was used and a structured questionnaire was designed to collect the data and in-depth interviews from 12 academic librarians of the capital cities of four provinces of Pakistan. A systematic sampling technique was used to collect the data from library professionals. The results reveal that academic libraries took imitative to launch IL programs at academic libraries of Pakistan but there is a need for improvement and revamp them. The findings show that library orientation and tours are considered the most useable methods. Digital literacy skills are deadly required to launch an effective IL program. Therefore, library professionals are required to enhance their ICT skills to deliver quality and effective IL programs. A number of gaps were also identified such as; absence of IL policy, lack of training and workshops, and the failure of library professionals to promote IL programs among the user community. In the present scenario, it is suggested that library professionals, library associations, and the Pakistani government should pay attention to formulating a national-level IL policy that will be implemented unanimously in all libraries