INFORMATION NEEDS OF USERS OF ACADEMIC LIBRARY: A CASE STUDY OF FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC NASARAWA
ABSTRACT
The
study examined the information needs of users of academic libraries in
Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa, Nasarawa State. It was a descriptive
research using questionnaire as the main instrument for data
collection. Results showed that the users of academic libraries in
Nasarawa State need information in the following areas: education,
health and politics. Analysis of questionnaire showed that students
information needs are not adequately met even though they constitute the
greater percentage of the library use. the library is the centre of
academic excellence in any academic institution, not the classroom or
the lecture hall. The library is the academic soul of an institution of
higher learning. The primary responsibility of the academic library is
to aid the parent institution in carrying out its academic programmes.
It functions to satisfy the institutional teaching, study and research
objectives. It strives to meet the academic library needs of the
students and teachers. The excellence of the academic library is
determined by the extent to which it supports its institution’s
objectives. The academic library goes at length to provide all forms of
human records in all fields of knowledge needed by members of the
academic community for the successful pursuit of academic programme such
as teaching, study and research.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Information
has always played a significant role in recorded history. From time
immemorial, information and communication has always formed the basis of
human existence. This fact has made man a relentlessly seek ways to
improve the processing of information and communicating such information
to one irrespective of distance and on a timely base. But the
restraints to these are the place, time, to whom what kind of
information and how effective this information is disseminated to meet
the needs of the users. As such, for one to be fully armed with
relevant information and varying ones too, constant use of the library
is just the answer. Information which is an assemblage of data in a
comprehensive form capable of communication has no doubt played a
leading role in the development and modernization of human society.
Information abounds in various fields of human endeavour, amongst which
are academics, scientists even semi and non-literates need information
for current awareness, retrospective searches factual information,
improving existing services acquiring new ideas, research and to produce
information.
Webster’s 3rd New International Dictionary (1961) defines information as “knowledge of a particular event or situation” or as the “knowledge communicated by others or obtained through investigation”. (Ehen and Hermen, 1982) “Human at times appears to have the capability to think rationally and thus have the way to develop its ability to “need” information to be used in making decisions”. And information need reflects a desire for increased expected accuracy in the solution of a problem. The need should not be viewed in a negative sense as a “hole” needing to be filled. Instead, it should be seen positively as that which increases decision making accuracy, because they feel that the information might be of some use in the future. Haruna and Mabawonku (2001) contended that “needs arises when the state of possessed knowledge is less than what is needed to deal with some issues and that information needs are divers, constantly changing and not amendable to generalization”. (Carty, 1995) advised researchers on user need to “understand the psychological and the sociological patterns of individuals in a group in order to explore the behavioural pattern of users in relation to the products of information technology.
Information users are persons that use information and they include government functionaries, housewives amongst others needs are matters of priority, what we need if an overriding reason. With these, we can see that libraries can be designed to meet the demands of specific groups and thus, the direction of this work, which is an academic library. The more the society grows and becomes more complex, so does the library responds to it by growing and becoming more complex to meet the needs of the society. Gates (1976) noted that this is more pronounced in the 19th nineteenth century when in the United States of America, the elitist status of the library from the earliest time to the 19th eighteenth century began to crumble because of the great upsurge of interest in self-education and of the desire for universal public education. As the society aggregates into different sectors, libraries were established in these sectors of the society.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Different
types of libraries, therefore, emerged to meet different needs of
members of the society. These libraries include: the Academic Library,
the National Library, the Private Library, the Public Library, the
Research Library, the School Library, the Special Library. It was
encouraged by the movement led in the 1840s by Horace Mann and Henry
Barnard, who were only promoting libraries for the school districts, to
support the academic and public educational programme but also academic
libraries for all people, which would be as Horace Mann said “the
crowning glory of our academic and public school”. These libraries
failed to achieve the promise that their promoters had hoped. The tax
base was too small, the amount of revenue was inadequate to keep the
libraries viable, and they were often the victims of exploitation by
rather unethical publishers’ practices.
The central role of the academic library in education is more pronounced now with the learning process which takes place through interaction with a variety of learning resources, through groups of individuals carrying out studies and enquiries, or through research under the guidance of the teacher. The funding and controlling authority of the library is the parent institution. One of professional services provided by the libraries in academic libraries in academic library is the selection and development of library collection mainly on the basis of the education philosophy and objectives of the parent institution. This is opposed to the old learning process which emphasized classroom instruction characterized by a teacher lecturing students, issuing handouts or dictating notes that are memorized and reproduced in an examination. In most cases, because of its strategic role, the academic library building ranks amongst the best buildings and is usually strategically located in the institution’s compound, no academic institution achieves an academic height or excellence that is greater than the potentials of its library. The primary responsibility of the academic library is to aid the parent institution in carrying out its academic programme. The services of the academic library are provided on the basis of equality. For all students and teachers that are in needs of information regardless of age, religion, nationality, language or states. Services and materials must be provided for users who cannot, for whatever reason, use the regular services and materials for linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, academic libraries are a worldwide phenomenon. They occur in a variety of societies; in different stages of development. Although the varied contexts in which they operate inevitably result in differences in the service they provide, and the way those services are delivered, they normally have characteristics in common, which can be defined as follows: Brough (1953) “Academic library is the centre learning” which could be interpreted as symbolizing not just the importance of the library in the entire life of the institution but also an ideal physical location of any higher institutions. Academic libraries are generally defined as the libraries in institutions of higher learning. The academic libraries are as varied and distinctive as the institution which they serve. There are the libraries in the institution of higher learning, institute of education; collections of education, schools of theology, religious, legal and other professional colleges, and the universities. The libraries are integral of parts of the institutions of higher learning in which they are located. The library is the centre of academic excellence in any academic institution, not lecture hall. The library is the academic soul of an institution of higher learning. The library is, indeed, the true university of today. In order to fulfill the above purposes, universities, polytechnics, colleges of education do the following:
- Collection and acquisition of knowledge
- Organizing and preserving of knowledge for easy storage.
- Maintained and funded by their parent institution
- Classification of library materials
- Preparation of bibliographies
- Indexes and abstracts
- Research work
- User education
As academic
libraries build collection and plan programmes for the staffs and
students for instance, in the library of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa, a
student of Nasarawa State University Keffi is not given free access to
the materials in the library unless the student is given an introductory
letter from the school and signed by the University Librarian before
such student can be attended to. The information relevant is usually
considered either present or absent that is, information is relevant or
not relevant to an information need or use. information seeking in the
first place. Government needs information on the economy and changes in
population, not to plan the provision of adequate services, but also to
participate in international planning and development. While staffs
and student needs information on how to pass their examination and to
carry research work.
The
recognition of the importance of information in every fact of the
national development plan of any country is an index of the operations
of the nation’s information explosion and the desire for people to know,
new innovations and rapid increase in research, science and technology
and the general requirement for more relevant information becomes more
pertinent and necessary up to the point of desperation. This near
desperation influences the nation acquisition and proper dissemination.
Those who use library are called library users. The characteristics of
the users of academic libraries are patrons of academic libraries and
they include the entire body of staffs and students.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Some of the
problems of academic libraries grow out of developments within the
parent institutions such as increase in student’s enrolment and the
growing number of courses offered in the institutions. Since one
library can acquire only a small percent of these materials and since
some materials though soon obsolete must be kept by some institutions
the problems of what to acquire, what to keep, and how to preserve the
materials becomes challenging. To be able to offer the challenging
service in the library, the professional librarian must be broadly
educated, and possession of subject specialization as an advantage. He
must keep up with trends in higher education, information is so vital to
these set of people in the improvement of practice and conditions in
the area of production and scientific technological information. It is
necessary to identify users as well as provide library and information
professionals amongst others with an assessment of the users need. It
involves working closely with the teaching staff in planning new courses
and in determining the nature of library resources for their needs. The
size of the professional staff in academic libraries is determined by a
number of factors such as the type of organization within the library,
the population of the library users. The teaching methods in use, the
number of hours the library is opened, the arrangement of the building
and the range of services. Libraries and information specialize among
other concerns are interested in how scholars in various disciplines use
resources and their awareness of current library services available.
This is for the purpose of providing information that will assist in
building up the collections to best the meet the needs of their
clientele
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
ii) What are the types of information needed by the users of academic library in Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa library?
iii) To what extent are the information needs of users of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa library?
iv) What are the problems encountered
in a bid to meet the information needs by the users of Federal
Polytechnic Nasarawa library?v) What are the solutions to the problems of information needs by the users of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa library?
1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
ii) To identify the types of information needed by the users of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa.
iii) To specify the extent of information needs of users of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa library.
iv) To identify the problems encountered by the users of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa library..v) To proffer solutions to the problems encountered by the users of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa library..
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
ii) It will help the staff and students at all levels to realize the importance of academic libraries could play in information provision to academic dwellers so that they will assist by providing adequate materials for users to enable them update information materials in the library.
iii) It
would enable the libraries to realize the need to acquire requisite
skills and competence on how to meet the needs of their clientele.
iv) Finally, it will help scholars and researchers in their research works as it will provide a background information to them.1.6 SCOPE AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The study
focuses on the information needs of users of academic library. It
therefore covers the Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa as the scope of the
study. The study does not focus on other similar institutions within or
outside Nasarawa.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
For the
purpose of this study, the following terms are defined by the researcher
in accordance with their applications in the study.
- Academic is an attribute of education in higher institutions of learning.
- Academic library is any libraries found in the higher institution of learning.
- Information can be defined as a knowledge of a particular event or situation.
- Information technology: The study or use of electronic equipment, e.g. computers for storing, analyzing and distributing information of all kinds including words, numbers and pictures.
- Library: A collection of books and non-book materials organize for the benefit of its users.
- Needs: To require because they are important or useful and not simply because one would like to have them
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