Exploring the availability, accessibility, and utilization of isiZulu academic resources at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Abstract

The elevation of the South African indigenous languages encouraged universities to implement language policies. At the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a bilingual language policy was developed in 2006. It sought to advance the isiZulu language into an academic language. Numerous studies have investigated the development of language policy and explored the attitudes of staff and students towards it. The current study takes a different direction. It explores the availability, accessibility, and utilization of academic information written in isiZulu at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s libraries. The study employed a mixed-methods approach. The qualitative component consisted of semi-structured interviews with subject librarians, while the quantitative component involved distributing an online questionnaire to a cohort of first-language (L1) isiZulu-speaking students. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically, and quantitative data was analyzed statistically. The two groups of informants in this study, librarians and students, provided critical insights into the availability, accessibility, and utilization of isiZulu resources. The librarians highlighted cataloguing challenges and the lukewarm attitude of students towards the utilization of isiZulu resources. Students, on the other hand, supported the call to have more academic resources available in isiZulu, explaining that much of what was available was outdated. Furthermore, students recognized that resources in isiZulu did not extend to all subjects, for example, Psychology. Carol Kuhlthau’s (1991) Information Search Process (ISP) informed the theoretical framework of this study. The results indicated that the University of KwaZulu-Natal students’ experiences of information search align with the stages of the model. The year 2026 marks two decades since the implementation of the UKZN bilingual language policy. This study revealed that the database of resources available to students in their native language needs to be expanded as a matter of priority.