Awareness and use of the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) Database among faculty members in Federal University, Kashere and Federal College of Education (Technical), Gombe, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the extent of awareness and use of The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) resources by faculty members of Federal University, Kashere and Federal College of Education (Technical) Gombe. A survey design was adopted for the study. The questionnaire was used as data collection instrument. The population of the study consists of all the 85 teaching staff in the Faculty of Agriculture and School of Vocational Education of both institutions. A total of 85 questionnaires distributed but 82 were returned duly filled. The data collected was analyzed through simply percentage and descriptive studies. The study reveals that the faculty members under study are using TEEAL resources satisfactorily. Awareness level was greater than usage because of lack of search skills, difficulty in finding relevant information in the database, recurrent power outage and lack of support from library staff. The study recommends that the library should focus on user orientation and training on effective use of e-databases, awareness and orientation should be a continuous effort, and libraries should think outside the box and find an alternative source of power supply such as a standby generator, inverter or solar energy system.

Keywords: TEEAL, database, awareness, access, use of information resources, faculty members, library