Mentoring: panacea for enhancing library service delivery in tertiary institutions in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The Academic library system has received massive critique from various quarters (users) due to its inadequate service delivery and inability to attain its stated goals. This has been attributed to the downward trend in the quality of staff as most of the academic library personnel are not professionally trained librarians. As a result of this, the institutions are experiencing a flattening of their organizations, challenging them to provide sufficient growth opportunities for this kind of unqualified and inexperienced personnel in their libraries. In a bid to handling this problem, they sought to mentor each other as the way out to obtain maximum service delivery. This study is a survey design that examined mentoring as a panacea to enhancing the poor library service delivery in tertiary institutions in Imo state. Two research questions and a null hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. Using the purposive sampling technique, a sample of 400 respondents were drawn from Imo state tertiary institutions in the range of 200 experienced librarians and 200 lessexperienced librarians to represent the entire population of the library staff in tertiary institutions in Imo state. A researcher-made rating scale was validated and used as the instrument for data collection while the data collected were analyzed with the mean and standard deviation at 2.50 decision mark. The independent z-test was used in testing the hypothesis. The result revealed that mentoring has great effect in enhancing the knowledge and skill of the less experienced library staff towards ensuring effective service delivery in the tertiary institutions. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended among other things that motivation strategies should be adopted to encourage mentors and mentees for good performances.

Keywords: Mentoring, Library, Service, Delivery, Tertiary, Institutions