Roles of digital library services amidst Covid-19 pandemic in tertiary institutions in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

In this study, the researcher investigated the roles of digital library services amidst COVID-19 pandemic in tertiary institutions in Imo State, Nigeria. Two research questions were asked and two corresponding hypotheses formulated to guide the study. The study employed a descriptive survey design. The population is 123 library staff which comprised 89 Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) library staff and 34 Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education (ALVAN) library staff. 123 respondents made up the sample for the study using census sampling technique. A 15-item researchers-constructed rating scale titled “Role of Digital Library Service amidst COVID-19 Pandemic Scale” (RDLSCPS) was used to collect data for answering the research questions and testing the null hypotheses. The instrument was validated by two specialists in Department of Library and Information Science and one specialist in Educational Measurement and Evaluation, all in Faculty of Education, Imo State University, Owerri. A test re-test method was used to ascertain reliability co-efficient of 0.79 using Pearson “r” statistics which indicated that the instrument was reliable. Research questions were answered using mean scores and standard deviation, while t-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses. The result of the study found that the roles played by digital library during the COVID-19 pandemic include provision of access to current electronic book, online resources, scholarly material produced by members of the institution and meeting the core academic needs of the library users in tertiary institutions in Imo State. Based on the findings of the study, government should ensure that the digital library projects are well funded and managed to support the digital libraries services in various tertiary institutions.