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1. Introduction
The world is in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The 4IR is characterized by a fusion of technologies that blur the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres (Schwab, 2016). This revolution permeates all areas of life and professions, including academic libraries. Libraries have taken advantage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) presented by the 4IR to perform some of their functions and activities. Among the library activities that have benefited by the abundance of ICTs in the 4IR is information literacy (IL) (Ocholla and Ocholla, 2019). Academic librarians now exploit ICTs to teach IL as well as enhance student learning (Zielinski et al., 2018). Because of this, the role of academic librarians has transitioned from being the providers of information to the facilitators and content developers of training tools for IL (Osborn, 2017). However, the lack of relevant skills, financial resources and willingness to embrace these technologies are a deterrent for librarians to stay abreast of new and innovative IL trends (Anyim, 2018). This prompted Pandya (2015) to advise librarians to continuously advance their skills to partake in the digital environment as digital citizens. Therefore, librarians must be equipped with the necessary skills to use technological tools in facilitating IL. Hess (2014) believed that, if librarians could build online learning interactions that are as meaningful and effective as face-to-face interactions, IL could reach a wider audience and be more exciting to the students. The need for librarians to be able to use multimedia tools has further been underlined by the recent outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) which has forced many universities in South Africa and other countries to shut their doors and rely on e-learning (Ali and Gatiti, 2020; Murphy and Black, 2013). This environment requires librarians who are comfortable with manipulating various multimedia tools for the benefit of the users (Ali and Gatiti, 2020).
The overall aim of this study was to ascertain the academic librarian’s awareness and application of multimedia tools and technologies for IL practices at the North-West University (NWU) of South Africa. The specific objectives are to:
determine NWU faculty librarians’ awareness of multimedia tools used for IL;
ascertain the application of multimedia tools for IL instructional endeavours at the NWU; and
identify...