Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
The study investigates accessibility and utilization of information resources by academic staff of Federal University Gusau amid telecommunication shut down in Zamafara state. The researchers adopted quantitative research method using cross sectional survey design. Simple random sampling was adopted for the study and the Sample size of 169 was determined using Krejcie and Morgan table. Data was collected using questionnaire and the data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of statistical package for social science (SPSS). The finding revealed that majority of the respondents strongly agreed that visiting libraries and offline databases in the electronic library served as opportunity of accessing information during the internet shut down in the state. The study further found that books materials, newspaper and journal are the available and most utilized resources by the academic staff of the university during the shutdown. Similarly, the study found out that information accessed and utilized by the staff during the period was for manly lecture note preparation, research purpose, knowledge sharing and personal communication. the study also revealed that the staff encountered some challenges while accessing and utilizing the information during the period that include time constraint, insufficient information richness of the alternative source compared to the internet, poor personal communication, inadequate information for preparing lecture note and inadequate information for research. The study recommended that academic staff of the university be encouraged to access and utilize information from various sources, library in the university should double its efforts of creating awareness of the existence of various sources of information in the library and lastly the need for the academic staff of the university to keep themselves abreast with the various technique of accessing the alternatives sources information.