Resource sharing practices and management of collections in public university libraries in South-East Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the correlation between resource sharing practices and management of collections in public university libraries in South-East, Nigeria. A correlation research design approach was adopted for this study. The study population was 551 library staff made up of 10 university librarians and 541 professional and nonprofessional library staff from the ten public university libraries studied. The Bill-Godden statistical formula was used to derive the sample size of the study. Validated questionnaire and interview schedule were the instruments used for data collection. Data were analyzed using mean values and average mean to determine the mean variance. Chi-square statistics was used to test the five hypotheses used in the study on a significance level of 0.05. The results show that interlibrary loans constitute a strong variable in resource sharing practices and management of collections and that there is a strong correlation between consortia and management of collections in public university libraries in South-East Nigeria. The study recommended an urgent need to embrace active resource sharing practices among the studied university libraries as it would enable them to meet the information needs of the teeming library users especially against the current trend of dwindling financial resources and information glut.