Availability, Access to and Level of Use of Academic Library Information Resources; Study of Selected Academic Libraries in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

In this paper, the authors examined the   availability, access to and level of use of academic library information resources of selected academic libraries in South-western Nigeria. The objectives were to: determine the extent to which information resources are available for use; find out the extent of access to these information sources; find out the frequency of use of the information resources; determine the barriers to the use of information resources. The survey research method was used. The data collection instrument for the study was the questionnaires method. The major findings were that there is high level of availability of information sources in the selected Nigeria Universities studied; there is high level of accessibility of information sources in the selected Nigerian Universities studied.; majority of the respondents used information sources daily; Services provided in the library are conventional, reactive and product oriented rather than proactive, customer oriented, innovative, and augmentative.  Although, libraries tend to build up a vast resource collection, they provide insufficient user oriented programmes. The study recommended among others that Librarians should explore all available means, including lobbying, asserting their rights where necessary, request for gifts, donations and all wholesome means to ensure constant funding of their libraries cum availability of current information resources and factor in modern ICT facilities and innovative approaches into their library services to further improve access and use of their services.

Keywords:Availability of Information Resources; Access to Information Resources;  Use of   Information Resources; University libraries- Southwester, Nigeria