Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Abstract
The study examined the relationship between staff development programmes and service delivery in Imo State Public Library, Owerri. The study was guided by three research questions and three null hypotheses. A census study technique was adopted to cover the entire population of 42 library staff. A correlation research design was adopted for study, while rating scale was used as data collection instrument. The data collected were analyzed using Pearson (r) statistics to answer the research questions. The hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics of simple linear correlation at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that there is a positive relationship between in-service training in use for staff development and service delivery in Imo State Public Library, Owerri; that there is a positive very high extent of relationship between mentoring programmes in use for staff development and service delivery and also that there is a positive very low extent of relationship between the extent of practice of continuing education programme and service delivery. The researcher recommended that Public library management in Nigeria should go beyond the conventional methods of providing in-service training for library staff and look towards the virtual aspect of staff development as this is the best way to acquire and share knowledge globally; that public libraries should effectively evaluate their mentoring programmes and provide them with feedbacks in order to ascertain their effectiveness in terms of the impact of the programmes job performance (service delivery) of the library staff and also that public library management should, as a matter of necessity, place more emphasis on staff acquisition of skills and knowledge in Information and Communication Technology and other related areas to enable them cope with the challenges occasioned by ICT integration in library services and operations.