PUBLIC LIBRARIANS’ PERCEPTION OF THE IMPACT OF THE UTILIZATION OF ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES AND EFFECTIVE SERVICE DELIVERY ON LIBRARY USERS IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the public university librarians1 perception of the impact of the
utilization of online information resources (OIR) for effective services delivery on the
library users in South-East, Nigeria. To guide the study, one objective, and one research
question were used while one hypothesis was formulated and tested at 0.05 level of
significant Descriptive survey was adopted for the study. The population of tlie study
was 174 professional librarians. Total census was used for the study hence tliere was no
sampling. The instrument of data collection was questionnaire. Validated copies of the
questionnaire were tested for reliability using Cronbach Alpha, and the reliability
coefficient obtained was 0.94 confirming its reliability. The 174 copies of questionnaire
were administered to the respondents through the help of research assistants one from
each state of the South-East. 157 were returned representing 90% return rate. Data was
analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean frequency count and standard deviation.
Themeanwas used for answering the research question while inferentialstatisticsof t-test
was used for testing the hypothesis. The resultshowed mean at 2.95 high extent response
rate by the respondents and agreeing conclusively that the public university librarians'
utilization of online information resources and effective services delivery in the public
university libraries were of high impact on the public university library users in South East Nigeria. Hence the study recommends that university librarians should aptly direct
for the utilization of OIR for continuous high impact on the users (the service receivers).
Keywords: Users Online, Information, Resources, Utilization, Sendees,
University Librarians, Perception, Impact.