Michaela Maua is a librarian in charge of a Digital Resources in the Library department, and the institutional Knowledge Management system Coordinator at Pwani University in Kenya. His education – in Kenyan Universities and Colleges – concentrated on Library Open source systems and Information Literacy. His present research focuses on visual literacy projects in different Universities in Africa. In his research areas, he has presented several articles. He is associated with national and international research projects to train, create awareness, and investigate issues related to the copyright, visual literacy, and open source systems in academic Universities in Africa.
Visual literacy initiatives in academic institution libraries: A literature review from 2015 to present
Due to the 21st century developments in novel media technologies – digital photography, internet access, and social media apps such as WeChat, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, and WhatsApp – visual communication is ubiquitous in the contemporary society. Academic libraries, therefore, have an important role to play in educating library users on visual literacy to enable them to incorporate visual information in learning and research. The paper is based on a systemic review of selected literature published between 2015 and nowadays. This research captures the literature review of visual literacy initiatives in the academic libraries to illustrate the best practices for imparting these skills to the library users. Specifically, the paper reviewed the literature following strategies that include the library creating activities or programmes aiming at identifying and improving the library user’s skills in recognizing, accessing and using visual images.