Electronic Library Support Services and Resources for Law Students in South East Nigerian University Libraries

Abstract

This study investigated electronic support services and resources for law students in Nigerian university libraries. Descriptive research design was adopted. Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. The overall population of law students in the five selected universities was three thousand five hundred and sixty-four (3564). One hundred (100) students were randomly sampled from each of the five universities. In all, 475 (95%) responses were retrieved as sample size for the study. The findings revealed that law students were aware of and could access e-resources such as CD ROM, Law Pavilion, Open access iournals, e-magazines, DOAJ, JSTOR, LexisNexis and electronic journals. Though results showed a remarkable accessibility of electronic information resources in the law libraries, the core legal e-resources appear to be inaccessible to users. However, among the core legal e-resources, Law Pavilion and LexisNexis recorded highest accessibility and Law Pavilion was frequently used by law students. Majority of the respondents acquired information literacy skills through assistance from the library staff. The study identified some challenges experienced in access to electronic legal resources. The study recommends that there should be regular subscription to important law databases that will be highly beneficial to law students in order to enhance legal education and research.

Keywords:  Electronic Library, Law Library, Electronic Resources, Nigeria Universities, South East Nigeria