Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
1-27-2024
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Training has been observed to be a very important element in personnel management. Even though no organisation can grow in its services without continuous training of their staff, it has been observed that most public libraries’ staff are not well trained nor exposed to continuous training programmes. This study, therefore, seeks to examine the effect of staff training on information services delivery to library users in public libraries in the South-west of Nigeria.
The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprises all the staff in the six State Library Boards in the Southwest of Nigeria, with a population size of one hundred and six (106). Total enumeration was adopted for the study, and questionnaire was used for data collection. Data collected were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The data were presented on simple frequency tables and Percentages, arithmetic mean and standard deviation were equally computed. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to examine the effect of training on information services delivery by the library staff.
The findings from the study revealed that there is a positive and significant linear relationship between staff training and information service delivery to users in public libraries (r=.238; P<0.05). Findings also show that the most frequently used training is workshops/seminars/conferences, followed by job rotation, mentoring/coaching, consultant training, industrial attachment and research training. However, findings also revealed that the staff in public libraries are not often exposed to training. This is usually as a result of lack of funds for organising training programmes, poor budgetary allocation to public libraries, lack of written training development policies, poor knowledge of ICT facilities, and lack of necessary training facilities, amongst others. It was however recommended that public libraries should pay attention to staff development by investing the necessary resources that will enable the individual library staff and institutions to maximise the benefits of training and development.