Challenges associated with Adoption and Use of Digital Information Resources in Federal Universities Libraries in Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the challenges militating against the adoption and use of digital information resources by postgraduate engineering students in Federal University Libraries in Nigeria. A Cross-sectional survey design was adopted. The population of the study consisted of 1695 postgraduate engineering students from 12 selected Federal Universities in Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was adopted to sample 306 postgraduate engineering students. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The data was subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The findings showed that challenges faced postgraduate engineering student in adopting and using digital information resources were inadequate or nonworking computer systems (x=3.22), lack or poor internet service (x=3.46) in the university’s library. The study revealed that broken uniform resource locators or inaccessible online database in the University’s website (x=3.37), and lack of awareness of digital information resources among postgraduate engineering students (x=3.10) also constituted the challenges faced by the students. The weighed mean score of the statistical results indicated that the challenges faced by the postgraduate engineering students in adopting and using digital information resources were significant (xw = 3.076). The study recommended that government should mix and prioritize the provision of funds and supervision its policies and plans to ensure that academic libraries function well. Librarians should ensure that user education is regularly carried out to ensure that no student is left in the lack of awareness of and availability to the libraries’ information resources. Library users should adopt and use only the digital information resources being acquired, subscribed to and disseminated by academic libraries.