Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
4-2024
Document Type
Article
Abstract
In Nigeria, many public and private university libraries have deployed the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) as a retrieval tool to improve services for user satisfaction. The study, therefore, investigated the assessment of students' information literacy skills and OPAC usage: a study of law undergraduates in Osun state, Nigeria.
The population comprised 1,374 law undergraduate students from one public university and four private universities in Osun State in Nigeria, and a two-stage sampling technique was used to select a sample of 326 for the study. A validated structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analysed using frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation as descriptive statistics tools, and the hypothesis was analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC).
The result revealed that law undergraduates rarely used OPAC. The findings further showed that law undergraduates possessed high information literacy skills. Furthermore, the findings uncovered that information literacy skills significantly influenced OPAC usage in universities in Osun State, Nigeria (R2 = 0.017, F (1, 287) = 4.812, β = 0.129, t = 2.194, p < 0.05).
In conclusion, it is recommended that university libraries be fully automated to encourage OPAC usage by law students and ensure enhanced internet facilities for effective OPAC usage by law students and should be encouraged in university libraries. In addition, regular training and retraining on using digital technologies relating to the OPAC system should be done among law students to enhance efficient OPAC usage in university libraries.