Deterioration of Serial Materials in University Libraries in South-South, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to determine the deterioration of serial materials in university libraries in South-South, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. The study population comprised of 461 university librarians in seventeen selected university libraries from States of South-South, Nigeria. Three hundred and ten (310) librarians were used from the population of the study. The questionnaire was the only instrument used for data collection. Mean, standard deviation and frequency counts were used to analyze the data collected. The study revealed that serials deteriorate in university library as a result of brittleness, fragility, and tear and the type of serial materials that are prone to deterioration are newspapers, magazines, newsletters etc, hence recommendations were made, these include various methods should be applied by parent institutions to curb deterioration of serials, appropriate instruction should be developed for monitoring good housekeeping practices and also inappropriate use of photocopier should be discouraged.