Printed And Electronic Resources Utilization By Agricultural Science Students In Nigerian Universities

Abstract

This paper examines the use of printed and electronic resources by agricultural science students in three Nigerian universities. A two-part questionnaire was designed to elicit necessary information from the respondents selected for the study. One thousand three hundred (1300) respondents from faculties of Agriculture in three Nigerian universities were selected for the study. A total of 912 respondents duly completed the questionnaires. Frequency and simple percentages were used to analyze the results. The results revealed that students rely mostly on textbooks among the printed resources available in their libraries. The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) was the most widely consulted electronic database resources while electronic mail was mostly used among
the internet facilities listed. Respondents adjudged the library collection of one of the universities to be poor. Major problems faced by the students include inadequate provision of full internet connectivity and lack of skill to use the electronic databases available. The study recommends restructuring of the yearly orientation programme to meet the information use and retrieval needs of library users. Other recommendations include the establishment of internet ready computer centres to compliment teaching, learning and research in the library and organisation of training for users on databases search.