Librarians’ attitude and ict competence on use of library resources and services in two academic libraries in oyo state

Abstract

The resources and services in an academic library such as a university library are meant for use predominantly by undergraduates because they constitute the largest population of academic library users. These resources and services are needed to complement and support academic activities of undergraduates. However, observation revealed that these resources and services are underutilized. This study therefore examined librarians’ attitude and ICT competence on use of library resources and services by undergraduates in two universities in Oyo State. The descriptive survey research design was employed for the study. Population consisted all 17,639 undergraduates and librarians in the universities. A combination of purposive and stratified proportionate sampling techniques was used to select similar faculties in the two universities and a sample fraction of 2% to select 223 undergraduates while 30 librarians responded from the two universities after being totally enumerated. Questionnaire was used for data collection and was analysed using frequency count and percentages, mean and standard deviation, correlation and regression analysis. Undergraduates (145; 75.1%) agreed that using library resources and services help to update their personal knowledge in their various disciplines. The frequency of library information resource and services used by undergraduates in universities was encouraging. Librarians are pleasant to users; library staff attitude had an influence on use of library services by undergraduates. Librarians’ attitude towards undergraduates in libraries is positive. The relationship between the Librarians’ attitude and use of library resources and services by the undergraduates was significant (p=0.00). There is significant relationship between librarians’ ICT competence and use of library resources and services by undergraduates (p=0.00). The study concludes that librarians’ attitude and ICT competence influence use of library resources and services by undergraduates. It is therefore recommended that librarians should expand their ICT competence level for the use of library resources and services of undergraduates in the two universities and also explore more of the ICT competence levels (i.e. internet navigation, computing management and computing application). Library management should device innovative ways to lure undergraduates to use the library resources.