Knowledge Sharing Attitudes of Library and Information Science Professionals in Nigeria

Knowledge sharing in an organization nowadays has been a strong force toward attaining organizational goals. Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals are at the forefront of information gathering and dissemination, and at such, knowledge sharing among such professionals needs to be investigated. The study examined the attitudes of LIS professionals in Nigeria toward knowledge sharing; and they comprised the population of the study in this research. The responses were collated through online survey using Google forms; the link was posted on Nigerian Library Association online platform and WhatsApp groups of all the library professionals in Nigeria, given a timeframe of two weeks for data collection. Descriptive statistics was employed for data analysis. Ninety-four responses were recorded within a space of two weeks. The results revealed that the attitudes of LIS professionals to knowledge sharing with a grand mean score of 4.5, which indicated positive attitudes. The avenue for knowledge sharing varies significantly from Conferences, Seminars, Face-to-face with social media platforms. Also, years of work experience was found to have significant influence on intrinsic motivational factors to sustain knowledge sharing attitudes of the professionals in library and information science specialty in Nigeria. The second hypothesis was also rejected for the acceptance of the alternative hypothesis that states that extrinsic motivation has significant influence on knowledge sharing attitudes of library and information science professionals in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommends, among, others that a mentoring programme be established for peer-to-peer and promotion of knowledge sharing should further be strengthened. survey research design to investigate LIS professionals' knowledge sharing attitudes in Nigeria. The study population was made up of all the LIS professionals in Nigeria. A questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. The questionnaire was made up of five parts; the first part addressed the issue characteristics of the respondents; second part listed four questions to assess respondents' perceptions of knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals, the third part concerns itself with factors of intrinsic motivation, the fourth part on extrinsic motivational factors, and the fifth section on knowledge sharing avenue. A five-liketh-type scale point scale ranging from 1= Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree was used. Items in the questionnaire were adapted from the work of Garoufallou, Siatri, Asderi and Balatsoukas (2010). The responses were collated through an online survey using Google forms. The link was posted to the Nigerian Library Association (NLA) online platforms and WhatsApp groups of all the library professionals in Nigeria. A timeframe of three weeks was given to complete the survey, after which the online survey was closed from accepting responses. Ninety-four responses were recorded within a space of three weeks. The data collected were coded in a spreadsheet and analyzed using Statistical packages for Social Science (SPSS, Version 23). Descriptive statistics of frequency count, percentages, and mean were used to analyses research questions, while one-way ANOVA was used to test the two hypotheses postulated in the study.


Introduction
2 beliefs. To this extent therefore, Peariasamy (2009) stated that "the most significant result of using knowledgesharing practices is to improve workers' skills and knowledge", in addition to increasing workers' efficiency and productivity. Library and Information professionals should tend towards knowledge sharing to make the Library more proficient than ever before. Now the characteristics and demands of users are becoming more diverse. Bock, Kim, and Lee (2005) conducted a study that "investigated the positive effect of attitudes towards knowledge sharing on individuals' intentions to share knowledge" and the outcome revealed positive intention.
According to Shin, Ramayah, and Jahani (2008), "absence of positive attitudes towards knowledge sharing can lead to selfishness, knowledge restraints and conflicts" and can retard the library's effectiveness as a serviceoriented organization. In an attempt to emphasize the importance of knowledge sharing, Oosterlinck (2004) avers that "knowledge sharing helps students receive additional feedback and improves their further research initiatives." The study is aimed at investigating knowledge sharing attitudes of Library and Information Science professionals in Nigeria. The following objectives were drawn for the study: -To find out the knowledge sharing attitudes of library and Information Science Professionals in Nigeria; -To find out how the avenues through which knowledge was shared among Library and Information Science Professionals in Nigeria. -To determine the contributions of years of experience and intrinsic motivational factors to knowledge sharing among Library and Information Science professionals in Nigeria; -To examine the influence of extrinsic motivational factors on knowledge sharing attitudes of Library and Information Science Professionals in Nigeria.

LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Yang (2004), "to achieve knowledge effectiveness, individual knowledge needs to be shared, and unless individual knowledge is shared with others, the knowledge is likely to have limited impact on effectiveness." To ensure a good flow of information to mitigate uncertainty, librarians must share knowledge; the absence will lead to information hoarding. "Knowledge sharing is defined as the voluntary and social process of transferring, absorbing, and reusing existing knowledge to serve an organizational end" (Harder, 2008). This definition emphasizes the voluntary and social nature of knowledge sharing, where individual motivation becomes the main factor in explaining knowledge sharing behaviour. This does not mean that managers cannot influence knowledge sharing. Indeed, managers can influence motivation to share knowledge in numerous ways, not the least via reward structures and management styles. However, the factors that motivate knowledge sharing are likely to differ from those that inspire more simple and measurable tasks (Osterloh & Frey, 2000). According to Van den Hoff and de Ridder (2006), knowledge sharing is "the process of exchanging knowledge and jointly creating new knowledge." Kim and Lee (2006) also describe knowledge sharing as employees' ability to share their work-related experience, expertise, and know-how with other employees through informal or formal methods within an organization.
To produce both products and services innovation in the libraries, Anna and Puspitasari (2013) posit that some libraries already have a more advanced vision by applying knowledge sharing with various purposes, significantly enhancing knowledge creation among staff. Daniel's (2005) study revealed that librarians shared knowledge in university libraries as they saw the need to work together to improve their performances and extend the understanding of libraries beyond the provision of services to knowledge creation and discovery for the benefit of community of users. Onifade (2015) affirmed that knowledge sharing among librarians is vital as part of the knowledge management process. Intrinsic or extrinsic factors of motivation could influence the motivation toward sharing knowledge in an organization.
Deci, as far back as 1975 sees "intrinsic motivation as engaging in an activity for its own sake, out of interest, or for the pleasure and satisfaction derived from the experiences." Research works recognize the role of intrinsic motivators in explaining human behaviours in several domains. Osterloh and Frey (2000), in their contribution, consider "reputation as a strong motivation to share knowledge" while Lin (2007) indicates that "enjoyment in helping others gingers knowledge sharing." According to Szulanski (1996), the source's intrinsic motivation is the most crucial factor in knowledge sharing. Therefore, it has the aptitude to transmit the message and the desire to share it. This intrinsic motivation is especially essential for the transfer of tacit knowledge. The study proposes enjoyment in helping others, obtaining achievement and success, and reputation as three conditions that form faculties' intrinsic motivation for knowledge sharing. According to Sutton (2009), to encourage staff to engage in knowledge sharing, they need to be given inherent rewards such as the opportunity to go for conferences, training, or recognition.
The sharing of knowledge that involves the provision of tasks and know-how to help others do occur through many avenues such as face-to-face, capturing, networking with other experts in the professions (Cummings, 2004). The options available for knowledge transfer/sharing include networks, electronic mails, and the internet to meet users' information needs in the 21 st century. Fayose and Nwalo (2000) wrote that university libraries are interested in using technology to network operations such as administration, cataloguing, interlibrary loan, and international bibliographic project. If properly utilized, it will help the growth and development of libraries in different directions. It will allow easy integration of various activities, facilitates cooperation, avoids duplication of efforts within the library and among libraries in a network, eliminates some uninteresting and repetitive work, and provides a marketing opportunity for its services. Twenty years down the line, there has been a spike and increase deployment and use of technologies in virtually every facet of library operations including knowledge sharing. According to Anna and Puspitasari (2013), libraries support knowledge sharing with computers and internet networks. Nazim (2016) study affirmed that library professionals most use information technology-based tools for sharing of knowledge with their colleague.

Methodology
This study adopted a correlational type survey research design to investigate LIS professionals' knowledge sharing attitudes in Nigeria. The study population was made up of all the LIS professionals in Nigeria. A questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. The questionnaire was made up of five parts; the first part addressed the issue characteristics of the respondents; second part listed four questions to assess respondents' perceptions of knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals, the third part concerns itself with factors of intrinsic motivation, the fourth part on extrinsic motivational factors, and the fifth section on knowledge sharing avenue. A five-likethtype scale point scale ranging from 1= Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree was used. Items in the questionnaire were adapted from the work of Garoufallou, Siatri, Asderi and Balatsoukas (2010). The responses were collated through an online survey using Google forms. The link was posted to the Nigerian Library Association (NLA) online platforms and WhatsApp groups of all the library professionals in Nigeria. A timeframe of three weeks was given to complete the survey, after which the online survey was closed from accepting responses. Ninety-four responses were recorded within a space of three weeks. The data collected were coded in a spreadsheet and analyzed using Statistical packages for Social Science (SPSS, Version 23). Descriptive statistics of frequency count, percentages, and mean were used to analyses research questions, while one-way ANOVA was used to test the two hypotheses postulated in the study. As shown in Figure 1, most of the respondents, 56 (59.57%), were females, while 38 (40.34%) were males. This implies that females were more in the profession of Library and Information Science than males in Nigeria. Figure 2 revealed that (64%) of the respondents possessed MLIS/M.Sc degrees, 21(22%) were PhD degree holders, while 13(14%) are in the categories of holders of HND/Bachelor degree. Figure 3 revealed the type of libraries in Nigeria. The majority of the respondents, 61(64.89%), were from academic library, 10(10.64%) from Research library, 9(9.57%) were from the national library, 8(8.51%) respondents were from Public library, while 6(6.38%) respondents being the least were from the school library.

Type of Library Academic Library
Research Library National Library Public Library School Library Figure 4: shows the years of work experience of the respondents on the job as library workers. From the distribution pattern, 31(32.98%) respondents had 5-10 years of work experience. This is closely followed by 28(29.79%) respondents with between 11-15 years of work experience. Among the responding LIS professionals, only 11.70% and 10.64% have had above 20 years and below five years of work experience on the job respectively. It is clear from the results that most of the respondents had between 5-10 years of work experience.   Table 1: shows the grand mean score of 4.5 of knowledge sharing attitudes of the LIS professionals in Nigeria. The implication of this is that knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals is to a very high level whenever the need to share knowledge arises.   Table 2 show the influence of years of work experience on intrinsic motivation for knowledge sharing among LIS professionals. The ANOVA summary shows F= .094, which was found to be significant at .05 level of probability. Based on this outcome, the null hypothesis was rejected for the acceptance of the alternative hypothesis. The implication of this is that years of work experience and Intrinsic motivational factors have a significant influence on the knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals in Nigeria. Hypothesis 2: Ho: Extrinsic motivation has no significant influence on knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals in Nigeria.

Knowledge Sharing Avenue
attitudes among LIS professionals. The ANOVA summary shows F = 7.635 that was found to be significant at .05 level of probability. Consequently, the null hypothesis is rejected for the acceptance of the alternative hypothesis. The implication of this is that extrinsic motivation has significant influence on the knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals in Nigeria.

Discussion of findings
The result on the level of knowledge sharing attitude of LIS professionals revealed that all the respondents shared knowledge among their colleagues, which indicated a positive attitude toward knowledge sharing with the grand mean score of 4.5. This is in line with Ogunmodede and Popoola (2019) study that reported a high rate of knowledge sharing among librarians in federal universities in Nigeria and a positive attitude toward knowledge sharing.
The study revealed the various avenues by which LIS professionals share knowledge. It is revealed that most of the respondents (73.4%) used Conference/Seminars avenue for knowledge sharing. This finding is supported by Okonedo and Popoola (2012) work that reported in their results that LIP share knowledge through Seminars and Workshops. The study also revealed that 70.2% of the respondents use Face-to-face, 68.1% use Social Media platforms. These findings are in line with the study of Nassuora (2011), and Ilako and Akeriwe, (2016).. In contrast, avenue such as Collaborative research 3(3.2%) and Departmental Meetings 2(2.1%) was used by fewer persons in knowledge sharing.
The finding from the hypotheses tested revealed that years of experience and intrinsic motivational factors have significant influence on the knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals in Nigeria.
The second hypothesis also shows that extrinsic motivation has significant effects on knowledge sharing attitude of LIS professionals in Nigeria. This implied that external motivational factors have greatly insignificant on knowledge sharing attitudes of LIS professionals have greatly insignificant external motivational factors on knowledge sharing. This can be corroborated with the finding of Ilako and Ikoja-Odongo (2011) that revealed that librarians in Makerere university shared their knowledge with a colleague in the form of experience, insight as well as in codified form (tacit and explicit).

Conclusion and Recommendations
Knowledge sharing is seen as one of the factors that contributed significantly to organizations growth and development. The findings have shown that knowledge sharing is an integral part of library and information science professionals in Nigeria. The attitudes toward sharing knowledge among peers are significantly high. The most common avenue for knowledge sharing is conferences and workshops and years of experience is seen to substantially influence knowledge sharing attitude of the library and information science professionals in Nigeria. It can be deduced that LIS professionals have a high level of attitude toward knowledge sharing; this could be as a result of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. The library and information centres and schools in Nigeria should therefore create a climate which prompts knowledge sharing.
The study, therefore, recommends that: 1. The various libraries and schools should further encourage an increase in Knowledge sharing among their staff by providing supports in term of commendation letters, promotions etc. 2. Knowledge sharing should be encouraged during meetings. 3. Collaborative research that aid knowledge sharing should be encouraged among practitioners. 4. Mentoring system as an avenue for knowledge sharing is highly recommended. This will facilitate knowledge distribution and sharing most, especially between senior officers and junior officers. 5. Library and information science association should promote knowledge sharing among professional in Nigeria to meet up with advancements in technological development in library science education.