<div>However, Munyoro (2014)
has complained that there is
a gap in the studies that attempt to study the collaboration between Zimbabwean
LIS schools and practitioners in shaping the
professional identity of LIS professionals. Therefore, Munyoro (2014)
suggests that there should be a
study that
will raise awareness about building collaborative synergies between LIS
academics and practitioners. He also suggests that there should be a study that
investigates how these mutual synergies can improve the quality of teaching and
learning, research and community engagement, and allow equitable access to
learning tools. The researcher has assumed that studying how the blended
professional in academic librarianship creates, maintains and disrupts the
theory-practice divide would be a fulfillment of Munyoro's (2014)
recommendation. This is because blended librarianship as proposed by Bell and Shank (2007) has the ability to cut across the dimensions of the
practitioner’s institutional work and that of the LIS schools through the combination of pedagogic
skills, information technology and traditional librarianship. <br></div>