Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
2016
Abstract
Preliminary investigation into our institutions of higher learning revealed an ugly situation characterized by regular students’ unrest and even unnecessary labour agitations resulting in occasional closure of the institutions, polytechnics inclusive.
This unhealthy situation provides an important background for undertaking a research on the effect of library information resources and services utilization on the creativity of the people in charge of the institutions’ affairs. This study therefore looked into the library information resources and services utilization as correlates of creativity of senior administrative staff of polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria. A single stage random sampling technique was adopted to draw a sample size of 302 from 16 institutions out of 24 privately and publicly owned polytechnics that constituted the population of 421 senior administrative staff in the studied geo-political zone. This translated to 66.67 percent of the institutions under study and which is representative enough. Questionnaire was the appropriate instrument used to elicit information from the respondents. Copies of questionnaire were therefore administered on the 302 senior administrative staff sampled out of which 280 responded and found valid for analysis. This puts response rate at 92.7 percent.
The study found that library information resources and services utilization had significant joint effect on the creativity of the respondents. It was further found that library information resources and services utilization were good predictors of creativity of the respondents. The study further revealed that the constraints to library information resources and services utilization were mainly erratic power supply, inadequate information and communication technologies, poor maintenance culture, inadequate funding and low bandwidth of internet access.
The study then recommended a number of measures.