LIBRARY COLLECTION QUALITY AND LIBRARY PATRONAGE OF ACADEMICS IN SOUTH-WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

Academic libraries are an integral part of the higher education system; they provide quality collection to promote research, teaching and learning activities, however the declining state of patronage in the academic libraries have been traced to poor library collection quality. On this basis, this study examined the influence of library collection quality on library patronage among the academic in South-West Universities in Nigeria. Three hundred and ninety structured and validated Likert-scale type copies of questionnaire were administered to respondents, out of which three hundred and fifty were retrieved for data analysis. Questionnaire and observation checklists based on library patronage and library collection quality were used to collect data. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Descriptive statistics of frequency counts and percentages, mean and standard deviation and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. The study revealed high availability of quality collection with mean 2.96 on a four point scale. Relevancy (mean=3.07), authoritativeness (mean=3.03), accessibility (mean=2.89) and currency of library collections (mean=2.88) were rated high by the participants. Major factors militating against library patronage were lack of lodges for visiting researchers (mean=3.19), non-availability of conference/seminar rooms (mean=3.19), poor network coverage due to insufficient bandwidth (mean=3.07), uncomfortable chairs and tables when used (mean=2.95), stringent library rules (mean=3.19), staff poor reference competency skill (mean=2.92), inadequate management support (mean=3.19), lack of willingness of staff to assist users (mean=2.86), poor service quality in the library (mean=2.91), unstable power supply (mean=2.81), difficulty in approaching library personnel. Further analysis revealed a significant influence of availability of library collection quality on library patronage of the academics of universities in South-West, Nigeria [t(348)=10.0803, p=0.000; R2=23.9%; F(1.325)=109.557, p=0.000]. It is concluded from this study that improving quality of library collection would improve library patronage of the academics of universities in South-West, Nigeria. It is recommended amongst others, effort should be made on contentious improvement of library collections and other information materials in university libraries to ensure that they are always of good quality.