Accessibility and Usage of Scholarly Information Sources by Faculty Members and Postgraduate Students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Abstract

This study was aimed at developing an understanding of the scholarly information sources and services that faculty members and postgraduate students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria accessed and used to support their research, teaching and learning. Three research questions and one hypothesis were formulated and tested with respect to types of Scholarly Information Sources (SIS) available, accessed and used by the Faculty Members (FM) and Postgraduate (PG) Students of Ahmadu Bello University, (A.B.U.), Zaria, Nigeria, in this study. A number of 868 samples comprising 487 FM and 381 PG students were drawn from the population and used as sample size for this study. The data collected, through questionnaire and observations, were analyzed using frequency distribution tables and percentages, while the hypothesis was tested using T-test for independent samples. The results show that academic/research libraries and the internet is the major SIS accessed by the FM and PG students in A.B.U., Zaria. In addition, printed matters as well as manuscripts were the most accessed and utilized Scholarly Information Sources in A.B.U., Zaria. Moreover, there is significant difference between the FM and PG students in their uses of Scholarly Information Sources. This study therefore concludes that internet has revolutionized the process by which information is being packaged, processed, stored and disseminated, as well as how users seek and access information, these notwithstanding, the academic and the research library is still very relevant to faculty members and PG students’ scholarly activities. Therefore, the universities, through their library systems, need to explore the advantages and opportunities offered by the application of Information and communication Technology (ICTs) in scholarly information delivery.