Guest Speakers as Mentors: What Classroom Experiences Mean to Them

Abstract

Resulting from the collaboration between five practicing professionals and an LIS faculty member, this article illuminates the experiences of librarians and archivists who engage with LIS students on a continuous basis as guest speakers in LIS classrooms. The phenomenological approach helps to elicit first-hand accounts that encapsulate practitioners’ priorities and concerns. The free-floating narratives are combined with an extensive literature review related to mentorship practices in professional fields; they are used to produce a blended viewpoint-analytical article that places empirical data in the context of the three-pronged framework of mentorship motivations, focusing on outcome-oriented, student-oriented, and personal-learning-oriented motivations. These types of mentorship motivations focus on transmitting professional knowledge, socializing LIS students to become responsible professional citizens, and learning about the state of the field and the workforce from students themselves. The article provides suggestions for future empirical research into the motivation of LIS professionals who choose to mentor LIS students through classroom engagements and other avenues.