Influence of awareness and accessibility on electronic information resources use among students of public polytechnics in Lagos State

Abstract

Access and use of electronic information resources (EIRs) is fast becoming the determinant factors of the 21st century library management success. Incidentally, issues of awareness, accessibility and use have been observed as salient factors in EIRs use. Thus, the study examines the influence of Awareness and Accessibility on Electronic Information Resources EIRs among Students of Public Polytechnics in Lagos State. Survey design was employed on a population of 5,263 students made up of 1,748 HND students in Yaba College of Technology and 3,515 at the Lagos State Polytechnic respectively drawn through multistage sampling technique with sample size of 526 placed at 10% of the study population. A self-developed and validated questionnaire was utilized for data collection via online Google form. Subsequently, data collected from 391 respondents representing 85% response rate were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics that involves frequency count, simple percentages and multiple regression in answering the study research questions and formulated hypotheses. Major findings emanating from the study show that awareness has significant positive relationship with accessibility of EIRs (r=0.510 at p value is 0.05) among students, and that there exists positive composite influence of awareness and accessibility of EIRs on the use of EIRs at (r=0.726, F=143.881 with p Value at 0.05). This implies that increase in awareness of EIRs among students would positively influence their extent of access and use of EIRs, especially as students were found to be aware of EIRs in their libraries; while their mode of access is majorly by android phones; and that internet resources nd e-Journals were the highest frequently used EIRs (on daily basis) among students. The study however showed that students are confronted with several challenges in using EIRs ranging from infrastructural decay to slow internet connectivity, Poor power supply and complex database language upon which recommendations were proffered.