UTILIZATION OF INTERNET SERVICES BY LIBRARIANS IN FEDERAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

(A CASE STUDY OF NORTH WESTERN STATES OF NIGERIA)

By

Author

Presented To

Department of Education

ABSTRACT
The study was conducted to investigate the utilization of Internet services by librarians in federal university libraries in north western states of Nigeria. In the study, six research questions and six hypotheses were formulated and tested. One hundred and seventy-seven (177) respondents were issued copies of the questionnaires out of which, one hundred and fifty-five (155) completed copies were retrieved and used for the study. The data collected for the study were analysed using frequency tables and percentages while the hypotheses were tested using one way ANOVA to compare the mean scores of the respondents from the three university libraries studied. The findings of the study showed that the federal university libraries in the Northwest states provided basically the same Internet services to their users. The Internet is used for searching information for research and other purposes. Utilization of Internet services in the libraries was constrained by factors such as poor funding, high cost of connectivity, lack of adequate power supply, etc. The study recommended among other things, that there is the need for owners/stakeholders of the universities for the provision of Internet services, that to maximize the benefits of Internet use in the libraries, steps should be taken to ensure training and re-training of academic librarians to enable them stay abreast of developments in information work in this Internet era. Also, alternative sources of power supply should be explored to address the current problem of poor power supply from the national electricity grid.