<div>Mbambo (2006: 184)
highlights her observation that faculty librarianship is an internal
arrangement between the academic library and the LIS school. This is buttressed by
an earlier observation
made by Chikonzo et al. (2013) who found that the job
descriptions of academic librarians in higher education institutions in
Zimbabwe do not reflect some of the emerging blended roles and responsibilities
of academic librarians. In
the same vein, Pasipamire (2015: 64)
found that Zimbabwean academic librarians were struggling to fully fit into the academic part of their blended
role and concentrated on merely providing research support around collection
development and information discovery, rather than being fully embedded into
the research process. Pasipamire (2015: 64)
went further and established that Zimbabwean academic librarians did not have
adequate skills to practice their academic roles, and that they did not receive
sufficient support
from faculty and their parent institutions. For the blended roles of academic
librarians to be effective, Corrall (2010: 571)
proposes that the academic library should partner with academic departments and
faculties. A partnership between the LIS school and the academic
library will ensure that novice and practicing academic librarians have the
same knowledge and skillsets. <br></div>