Awareness, access and use of Online Public Access Catalogue (Opac) by undergraduate students in Federal Universities in North East-Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated undergraduate students' awareness, access and use of Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) in Federal University Libraries in North-East Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to determine the extent of undergraduate students' awareness about OPAC, their access to OPAC and to ascertain the extent to which the students make use of OPAC. The study used a quantitative research methodology using cross-sectional survey design to collect data from the respondents. A sample of 392 copies of a questionnaire were administered among undergraduate students in the selected university libraries, 314 copies of the questionnaires representing 80.1% were returned completed and found usable. The data collected were analyzed using tables and frequencies. The findings showed that most of the students were highly aware about the OPAC in their libraries; that the majority of students have access to the OPAC in their libraries with majority accessing it from computer terminals in the library. Furthermore, the findings revealed that majority of undergraduate students used the OPAC daily and many of them use it to select items for assignment, class presentation, and project work. The study recommended that there should be enough computers at the OPAC terminals, the university library should provide library user guide for fresh undergraduate students on how to use OPAC during library registration, organize orientation programmes on how to search information resources on OPAC, the OPAC interface designed should be made simple in order to encourage its use among the students and also ensure adequate provision of alternative sources of constant power supply to the terminals at all times.