Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
The corona virus disease reported in 2019 became a global pandemic in 2020. It now maintains an unwelcome status as one of the most difficult public health challenge of modern era. The disease is highly contagious much as the rate of information and misinformation diffusion about it. Whereas members of the public might have shared information on COVID-19 but library and information professionals (LIPs) are trained on the meaningful use of information and information dissemination through social infrastructure. Thus, this paper studied in Nigeria, the COVID-19 information dissemination behavior of LIPs, using the survey research approach. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire circulated online and analyzed using SPSS. Results show that the LIPs disseminated information on COVID-19 because they are professionals, they did so frequently, largely to fact-check/correct misinformation and update people with information from government and reputed agencies on many issues relating to the pandemic. Facebook and WhatsApp were the social media networks mostly used by them. The test of hypothesis shows significant relationship between gender and the attitude of LIPs devotion to disseminating COVID-19 information. Also, educational level of the respondents significantly impacted on fact-checking and correction of misinformation dissemination behavior of the LIPs, which also affected how much of information they share.
Updated with third author's name