Abstract
The study investigated Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competencies of librarians for effective service delivery in college of education libraries in North-central Nigeria. Seven research questions were developed and answered by the study covering library services delivered in colleges of education libraries in North-central, Nigeria; ICT competencies required and possessed by the librarians; extent to which the ICT competencies have contributed for effective service delivery; methods by which librarians acquired ICT competencies; challenges associated with acquisition of ICT competencies, and strategies for enhancing the acquisition of ICT competencies for effective service delivery in the libraries. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of sixty-three(63) professional librarians from 9 selected colleges of education in North-central Nigeria. Due to the manageable size of the population, the entire population of 63 professional librarians in the colleges of education libraries was used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled; Information and Communication Technology Competencies for Effective Service Delivery Questionnaire (ICTESDQ)’’ which was developed based on the research questions of the study. The draft of the questionnaire and interview were validated by three research experts from the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Nigeria Nsukka. To establish the reliability of the instrument, Cronbach Alpha technique was employed which yielded an overall reliability coefficient of 0.81 for the entire instrument. The data for the study were collected by the researcher with the help of one research assistants. Out of the 63 copies of the questionnaire administrated, 60 copies representing about 95%were retrieved, filled and used for the study. The data collected were analyzed using frequency distribution, percentage, mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions. From the data collected and analyzed, the study found that only 13 out of the 22 identified library services are delivered by colleges of education libraries in North-central Nigeria.The study identified 28 ICT competencies that are required by librarians for effective service delivery in colleges of education libraries, some of which include e-mail services, computer navigation skills, booting and shutting down of computer system, information management competencies, and web access skills. Out of these, the ICT competencies possessed by the librarians was very low. However, the major ones include sending email messages, printing, electronic document delivery services, e-mail services, using power point, using the world wide web (WWW), and booting and shutting down of computer system. This study also identified 20 areas in which the acquisition of ICT competencies have contributed to effective service delivery of librarians, 10 methods by which librarians acquired ICT competencies, 10 challenges that are associated with acquisition of ICT competencies by librarians and 7 strategies for enhancing the acquisition of ICT competencies for effective service delivery in colleges of education libraries in North-central Nigeria. Some of the strategies/recommendations include that: colleges of education libraries and their authorities should seekfor alternative sources of fund for ICT projects; they should continually organize ICT training course for librarians; they should monitor technological changes and development as well as monitor information preferences of their patrons, and ICT training policy should be mapped out in every college library.
