FACTORS INFLUENCING SELECTION AND ACQUISITION OF LEGAL INFORMATION RESOURCES IN UNIVERSITY LAW LIBRARIES: A CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY OF JOS LAW LIBRARY, JOS, PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA.

Authors

Lilian Ene Ujah, University of JosFollow
Eneojo Emmanuel Jacob, University of JosFollow

Date of this Version

Summer 4-22-2022

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The Research was conducted on Factors Influencing Selection and Acquisition of legal information resources in university Law libraries: A case study of University of Jos Law Library, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Four (4) objectives were formulated to guide the study which are to: Determine how often University of Jos Law Library acquire Legal Materials; Find out the criteria used in Selection of Legal Materials in University of Jos Law Library; Find out the methods used in Acquisition of Legal Materials in University of Jos Law Library and ascertain the challenges faced by Law Library in acquiring Legal Materials. Survey research design was used for this study; the population of the study was 150 registered users and 18 staff of the University of Jos Law Library. Therefore, the total population of the study is 168. Simple random sampling was used by the researcher to select 35 respondents out of 168 that was used as a sample for the study. The questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. Data were analyzed using frequency count and percentage tables. The study revealed that The University of Jos Law Library acquired legal materials very frequently. It was further revealed that there are some criteria used for selection and acquisition of legal materials in University of Jos Law Library, which includes, authoritativeness of the publishers or producers, significance of the subject matter based on collection assessment, importance/reputation of the author, among others.

These were few among other findings. In accordance with the findings, the researcher made some recommendations for the Library management which was about the need for ensuring that audiovisual materials and special collection/government publications that were not acquired, to be acquired for the use of all users and for the University Law Library to have a written collection development policy.