Undergraduates’ perception of accessibility of electronic information resources in university libraries in Nasarawa State

Abstract

This study explored undergraduates’ perception of accessibility and utilization of electronic universityin university libraries in Nasarawa State. The study was guided by two objectives and two research questions. A questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. Checklist was also used to ascertain the availability of the electronic information resources in the libraries understudied. The study adopted survey research design with a population of 4289 registered 300 Level student library users. The population consisted of 3819 undergraduate students of Federal University, Lafia, 146 Nasarawa State University, Keffi and 324 undergraduates of Bingham University.300Level student was used, been that they have stayed long in the school system and have already familiarize themselves with the electronic information resources available in the library. The descriptive statistics of percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviations was used to answer research question while chi square was used to test hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that there are several available electronic information resources such as e books, e journals, e newspapers, e magazines, e preprints, CD ROM, e projects, e lecture notes, e research reports, online databases, and internet services in the two universities libraries sample. The findings revealed that the available electronic information resources, though accessible, but were not sufficient for adequate use by the respondents. Considerably, majority of the respondents have a positive perception of electronic information resources and services. Based on the result of findings, that increase in accessibility and utilization of electronic information resources by undergraduate’s student in the three surveyed universities will lead to increase in learning, research and be beneficial to undergraduate, researchers, university community and librarians. Based on the result of findings, it is therefore concluded that undergraduate perception on accessibility and utilization of electronic information resources in the three surveyed universities is to a high extent and will increase if the challenges identified by the target area are looked into and also if the listed electronic information resources are made available to the library patrons, it was recommended that a well articulated and sustained effort is required to provide information and communication technology (ICT) facilities (Internet) in the university libraries to make information accessible to the students thereby continually meeting their information need and use