Impact of Serials Management, Access and Use on Publication Output of Lecturers in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

This study investigates serials management in university libraries, determines the extent to which serials are accessed and used and appraises the influence of availability, accessibility and use of serials on publications output of lecturers in federal universities in Nigeria.  Questionnaire administration method was adopted to accumulate data for the study.  Combinations of both open-ended and closed-form types of questions were used.  The study reveals that the universities studied have different types of serials in stock. Print and electronic serials were the major forms of serials used by lecturers in Nigerian universities with print serials being the more utilised.  University libraries and Internet were the major sources of serials used by the lecturers.  The result also reports that lecturers in Nigerian universities had publications in six categories of publications. The influence of serials management on access and use as revealed by the results, management on access (r = 0.112; P<0.01) was significant while management on use (r = -0.031; P>0.01) was not significant. All the independent variables (management, access and use) when combined had significant influence on the dependent variable (publications output) (F _{(3; 860}) = 12.48, R = 204, R² = 0.04; P<0.01). The study therefore recommends that government should provide adequate fund for provision of relevant, current and adequate serials for research activities to improve publications output of lecturers in Nigerian universities and that universities should maintain the policy associated with ‘publish or perish’ to boost research, information generation, utilisation and dissemination.

Keywords: Serials management, Access and use of serials, Publication output, Federal university lecturers, Nigeria.