International students compose a great portion of student body on university campuses in the United States. They face difficulties in using the academic libraries due to language barrier, disadvantaged communication skill, and lack of self service conception. It is a challenge for library to assist this ethnolinguistically diverse student population. Librarians must have an understanding of their information seeking behavior in order to serve them better. Intercultural communication skill is essential when interacting students from other cultures. An effective intercultural conversation involves four steps: to establish an open conversational decorum, to differentiate goal oriented talk from metatalk, to make explanation relative rather than absolute, and to match the outcome with student's lifeworld. Gatekeepers play an important role in information dissemination. It is suggested that librarians develop new approaches to identify the gatekeepers among the student groups. They must create their own multicultural environments for the benefit of all campus clientele.
| Keywords: | Ethnolinguistic student, Information seeking behavior, Intercultural communication |
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