Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Winter 12-11-2023
Abstract
The study investigates information communication technology competence and reference service provision in Federal Universities in North-Central, Nigeria. Reference librarians now provide users with databases that give access to millions of journal articles as well as access to the internet which has holdings of libraries and a limitless variety of formal and informal sources of information. The study has one objective, a research question and one hypothesis. The study adopted total enumeration using a descriptive survey design. The population of the study is three hundred and sixty library personnel comprising professionals and para-professionals. Three hundred and six questionnaires were returned and used for this study. The findings of the study gave insight into how the library personnel in the North-Central federal universities view information and communication technology and their competence in providing reference service to users. The study shows that the library personnel have high-level skills in search engines such as Yahoo and Google, and basic computing such as word-processing and storing and copying data into primary storage devices among others in the eight federal universities in North Central Nigeria. The result revealed a significant influence of ICT skills on reference service provision by library personnel in North-Central Nigeria. The study recommended among others that the governing council and senate of the eight federal universities should urgently consider providing, encouraging and upgrading the application of computer technologies in reference services in university libraries to boost the libraries and to also frequently and adequately provide training and development programme for library staff.