Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Fall 12-3-2021
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The paper examines the extent of disaster preparedness in libraries of three South-western Nigerian universities. The survey research method was adopted, randomly administering on a ratio of 1:1:2:3, eighty (80) copies of the questionnaire to staff members of four university libraries. A 73% response rate was recorded and simple frequency tables, Likert Scale aided with summative indexing and Chi square test were used for analyzing the collated data. Four research questions were answered with three universities selected for the population study. There were fifty-eight respondents, made up of 30 males (51.7%) and 28 (48.3%) females.Disaster Likelihood Index (DLI) was used to measure propensity to disaster and of the seven indicators, water leakages (3.89) and faulty power supply (3.15) having the highest index scores, are the most probable sources of disaster. In addition, results reveal that the most available disaster management utilities are fire extinguishers, emergency exits and smoke detectors in the libraries with 90%, 75.9% and 72.4% respectively. The availability of smoke detectors however varies significantly across the libraries and is most available in the Kenneth Dike Library. The level of preparedness was also measured with three main indices, namely: maintenance (MI), adequacy (AdI) and awareness (AwI) of disaster management measures, each with its checklist of indicators. With the mean MI, AdW and AwI being 3.17, 3.03 and 2.82 respectively, awareness on disaster management measures is the lowest scoring index of preparedness, and knowledge of emergency numbers has the least AwI (2.31) among its indicators. The study recommends among others, the installation of utilities like smoke detector, emergency exit doors conspicuously indicated,awareness campaign as well as regular staff training on disaster management, to increase the level of preparedness in all the university libraries.