Are You My Mentor? New Perspectives and Research on Informal Mentorship
The goal of this study was to investigate the characteristics and perceived value of informal mentorship by conducting a survey of academic librarians and non-librarians with MLIS degrees in Illinois. The body of literature surrounding informal mentorship comprises of a very small portion of that which relates to mentorship in general. The literature often presented problematic definitions and posed questions of legitimacy as informal mentorship has qualities that have been cited as examples of poor mentoring relationships. Our survey data highlighted characteristics of informal mentoring relationships and suggested that informal mentorship has been considered as valuable and more widely accessible to mentees than formal mentorship.
informal mentoring mentoring in academic libraries academic librarians  training of library employees