AVAILABILITY AND UTILIZATION OF MOBILE APPS AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN LIBRARIES BY STUDENTS’ OF FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined availability and Utilization of Mobile Apps and Social Media in Libraries by Students’ of Federal Polytechnics in North Central Nigeria. The study was conducted using two main objectives. They are: determine the types of mobile Apps and social media tools that are available in the studied polytechnics libraries and ascertain the level of usage of mobile apps and social media tools in the selected polytechnics studied. The target population of the study was one fifty-six thousand four hundred and forty-six (56,456). This consisted of fifty sixteen thousand, four hundred and forty-four (56, 444) Polytechnic students, six (6) Polytechnic librarians and six (6) heads of system/ICT units. The sample size for the study was 275 polytechnics students. The instruments used were a self-designed closed ended structured questionnaire and observation check-list. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation were used to measure demographic characteristics of respondents and other variables while for inferential statistics. Findings from the study revealed that Mobile Apps and Social Media services were available in the studied universities while university of Nassarawa polytechnics had the highest Mobile Apps and Social Media tools and mobile technology services among the studied institutions. Blogs, Facebook, text messaging and e-mail sending and receiving were the most used Mobile Apps and Social Media services. The study recommended that there should be provision of sufficient Social Media, develop an in-house mobile technology apps and a dedicated standalone library website and increase Internet bandwidth.