Seminar Kebangsaan Perpustakaan Akademik 2011 SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS INTERACTION BETWEEN LIBRARIANS AND LIBRARY CUSTOMERS: WHERE ARE WE HEADING? Norasieh Md Amin Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand Fadzilah Abdullah International Islamic University Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ABSTRACT With the advancement of various information and communication technologies over the past few years, we see evolving ways of interaction between librarians and library customers. Librarians utilize not only phone calls, email and online forms but also online chatting, instant messaging, online social networking application and all sorts of techniques to interact with customers. This paper discusses various techniques of synchronous and asynchronous interaction and elaborates their benefits and limitations. We develop an interaction model to illustrate this phenomenon based on the IIUM Library experience, the partial findings of a research investigation and a state-of-the-art review. The model could guide librarians in decision making and finding best practices. It could also allow them to choose appropriate types of synchronous and/or asynchronous interaction techniques that serve their customers best and ultimately suit their respective institutions‟ teaching and learning. Keywords: Academic libraries, ICT, synchronous and asynchronous interaction, interaction model, higher education INTRODUCTION We are witnessing evolutionary changes in higher education due to diverse reasons such as government policies, market forces (Fisser, 2001) and organizational culture (Kezar & Eckel, 2002). Another reason, i.e. the advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), causes an increasing use of technological innovations in various educational spheres such as in curriculum and course development, pedagogy and learning interaction (Norton & Wilburg, 2003). The changing landscape of educational spheres influences academic libraries to uphold changing roles and respond to changing demands for information.