An assessment of the cyber presence of academic libraries in Nigeria

Abstract

This webometric study provides an assessment of the web presence of academic libraries in Nigeria. The research work considered all the 129 accredited universities in Nigeria on National University Commission (NUC) website. Links to libraries on the homepages of the universities were searched. Google search engine was used for counting the webpages and in-links to the available libraries’ websites. Webometric Analyst software was used for generating the most targeted top level domains and link analysis of the websites. Findings showed that more than 50% of the academic libraries did not have websites. Also, academic libraries can be accessed from the homepages of 42% of the universities in Nigeria. There was an average of 20,203.47 webpages, 5.21 in links and 0.000258 web impact factors per academic library. Though most of the academic libraries that had websites are old and owned by the federal government, the private university libraries’ websites had more webpages than others. Generally, the web impact factors of the academic websites were negligible, which suggests that the academic libraries did not have useful information and innovation on their websites. The most targeted top level domains were .com (58.7%), followed by .org (12.4%), and the link network diagram shows that the libraries did not exchange information online. It is recommended that academic libraries in Nigeria should form a consortium that will manage the development and standardisation of their websites of academic libraries.

Keywords: Academic Library Websites, Academic Libraries, Nigerian Universities, World Wide Web, Webometric Analysis