Building a community of practice in a transnational university: The collaborative journey of cross-campus librarians

Abstract

For years, cross-border universities continue to provide access to education worldwide through collaborative partnerships especially at the organisational level. The purpose of the paper is to explore how a five (5) year partnership between two librarians from Lancaster University Ghana and Lancaster University have developed to brough together other partners which has shaped academic success especially library services provision to Lancaster University Ghana from the ground level.  Relevant literature review topics includes academic literacies as social practice, communities of practice in higher education, etc and adopts Wenger’s (1999) Communities of Practice and social learning systems model as a theory to support the study. The study adopted an exploratory case study approach providing evidence of the collaborative journey between the two librarians, the activities, working structure, support systems and other members of the community of practice within the last five years.  The lessons learnt revealed that sustained community of practice enhances social learning, enables timely professional support and access to information, bridges cultural barriers and fosters a sense of shared learning and experiences. It also provides valuable insights for building sustainable collaborations across culturally diverse and dispersed learning environments.