Mentoring In "The Role of Mentoring," Michael Stephens shows how mentors can be useful in the field of librarian science. Using the basic principles upon which mentoring programs are developed, and which are supported in our textbook, Stephens advises the use of technology to facilitate mentoring. In the article, the author expresses the value of mentoring for the librarian profession. Mentoring is more than just teaching and training the new librarian. It has to do with the totality of the position, including the working environment. For example, a mentor can help the new recruit to get along well with coworkers and managers. Mentoring has not played a significant role in developing new librarians, but it should, states Stephens.

There are benefits for professors as well as librarians when introducing a mentoring program. For one, the mentoring program can facilitate networking and communications between various departments. However, one must be careful not to confuse networking events with mentoring, or worse yet, to substitute networking events for...

Librarians tend to be introverted, which means that social events are not the ideal places where the new recruits can ease into their new professions. Professors of library studies are not good mentors, claims Stephens, because they do not actually do the work of the librarian in their daily lives. Perhaps professors of library studies make good mentors of future professors of library studies.
The author also points out that administrators can play a significant role in developing and promoting mentoring programs for librarians. Administrators can teach the new librarians about the reasons for the decisions they make with regards to resource acquisitions. Budgetary concerns that are in the province of administrators are often not communicated well to librarians. Stephens does an excellent job of explaining why administrators should be more transparent about their decisions, so that librarians have more comprehensive understanding of their work.

Finally, Stephens points out that mot current library science mentoring programs are…