Evaluation of Africana, Periodicals and Special Collection Section of Egerton University Library, Njoro, Kenya

Abstract

Africana, Periodicals and Special collection section of Egerton University Library provides information services directly to the users of the University library. The objectives of the investigation carried out during the months of August and September 2011 were to establish the extent of the use of the available informational resources, the subject area on which information was sought and the format of informational resources accessed. The study revealed that during the month of August 2011, postgraduates (52.83%) were the most users of the information resources while during the month of September undergraduates (79.6%) were the most users. Social sciences (23.72%), Education (33.06%) and agricultural (14.52%) subjects were heavily accessed. It was also established that Africana (52.64%) and Theses (33.92%) information resources were highly accessed. The possible reason why there was a variance in the use of the information resources was because the information was more applicable to the Kenyan situation. Among the most important recommendation was that Egerton University Library should develop a well coordinated periodical acquisition system that will lead to subscription of more relevant periodicals that meet the University’s information needs.

Key words: Africana, Periodicals, Regular, Self Sponsored Programme, Theses