CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The main purpose of the University Library is to support the objectives of the University, which is to promote teaching, learning and research. The university library is meant to serve the undergraduates, post-graduates, lecturers and other members of the university community. The quality of a university is measured largely by the quality of its library because of its unique role in the university system. There can never be the existence of a university without a library since the university is meant to teach and carry out research. For the teaching staff and research fellows, the university library is supposed to provide information resources and services of sufficient quality and diversity. The university library is supposed to provide a variety of services. It is also supposed to “serve” all the areas of knowledge taught in the university. Consequently, university libraries are sometimes decentralized with a main library co-ordinating departmental and faculty libraries. This is the situation in University of Agriculture, Makurdi Library where departmental libraries are co-ordinated by the main library. For a university library such as the University of Agriculture, Makurdi Library to perform its several functions, its collection must not only include books but other materials such as general and specialized reference collections, made up of journals, newspapers, manuscripts, historical maps, government publications, clippings, letters, thesis and audio-visual materials. 2 Utilization of library resources simply means using of library resources. A person or thing that uses something somewhere or someplace to achieve his or her purposes is a utiliser or user. In the same context, one can state that those who make use of the library materials for their benefits are library users or utilisers. Also, those who enter the library and find such library materials useful are library users.
