THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ICT SKILLS OF LIBRARIANS AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE SOUTH-SOUTH GEO-POLITICAL ZONE OF NIGERIA

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ICT SKILLS OF LIBRARIANS AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE SOUTH-SOUTH GEO-POLITICAL ZONE OF NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

            Information is the lifeblood of an individual or a nation and it is considered a vital resource in this era of technologically driven society.   In this information age, the progress of an individual or a nation depends greatly on the reservoir of information available at his or her disposal Omekwu (2006).People need information to plan and carry out their decisions.  To compete with other businesses, sell a product and make a profit, businesses need detailed information about assets, cash flow, consumer markets payrolls and many other business related subjects. According to Saleem, Shabana and Batcha (2013) information should be ranked as the fifth need of humanity in ranking after air, water, food and shelter.

In an academic institution like the university, information plays a crucial role for all stakeholders especially students, lecturers and researchers in the course of their studies, teaching and  research  work.Information can be found almost everywhere but the university library houses a great amount  of information organised  both in print and electronic formats needed by students, lecturers, administrators and researchers.

A university library  is established, owned and operated by  the university. The library exists to support learning, teaching, research and community services needs of the university. The success and achievements recorded by the university in terms of these parameters, portrays how the university library has been supportive to it, in the provision of all the essential information resources and services to the users. A university library is organized and structured into various divisions, sections and units with each performing functions that promote the over all well being of the library. There is the administrative division that is saddled with the overall control of staff, funds and resources. It provides leadership and sets broad policies for the effective management and functioning of the library as well as providing support services and logistic support to aid the activities and functions of other sections and units of the library.  The division oversees the day –to day running of the library.  The Technical Services department consisting of the collection development , cataloguing and classification , bindery  and Reprographic sections is the backbone of the library that work  behind the scene to ensure that information resources and library materials are acquired, processed and released  for circulation  for the utilization by library clienteles.  The Readers’ Services Department consisting of the circulation, reference, serials and special collections sections, deal directly with library patrons. This division houses sections that are the public services areas of the library concerned with facilitating the effective and efficient access and delivery of information and library materials to the clientele. They work together as a team to render different types of services on a regular basis for the library to serveher clientele.

We now  live in   a society where interaction between man and machine have become  compulsory for organizational progress, success  as well as the survival of man.  In this current society known as the digital age, Information and Communication Technology( ICT) has played a major role in the affairs of men.Progress in  ICT have made great changes in each and every field of human endeavour. The changes are evident all over the world, and its impacts being felt in every walk of life and in every field of knowledge. The field of library and information science (LIS)  has also   experienced this phenomenon. In the changing environment, every library has  grown in terms of reading material, equipment, space, staff and users. There is also a corresponding  increase in the performance of several library tasks.  According to Babu, Vinayagamoorthy and  Gopalakrishnan(2007), the library and information scenario has changed at such  a dynamic pace; there is a paradigm shift from print media to web media; from ownership of documents to access to information; intermediary to end-user model of services; and from location of specific libraries to digital/virtual/hybrid libraries. Similarly, there is a change in the needs and interests of the users. Therefore, the role of library and information professionals has also changed drastically. To meet the current demand, library professionals must be able to perform various tasks  to enable them  match with the transformation in the technological environment. Krubu and Osawaru (2011) have noted that the introduction of various Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) trend has led to reorganization, changes  in work patterns  and demand for new skills, job retraining and reclassification positions. The introduction of ICT in librarianship has necessitated retooling and acquisition of the skills required to operate in the global information society. This research then intends to present the ICT skills of librarians working in university libraries in the south south geo- political zone of Nigeria and determine how such skills have been used to perform various tasks in the library.

According to (UNESCO,2017)the term Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pertains to the use of the internet and computers in order to provide communication services to a wide consumer base. ICT is considered as the arrangement of informatics technology with other interconnected technologies, particularly communication technology.Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) refer to the convergence of audio-visual and computer networks through a single cabling or link systems. According to Rodriguez and Wilson, (2000), Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs) “refer to technologies people use to share, distribute, and gather information and to communicate through computers and computer networks/Internet; (including) e-mail – exchange of mails, text, graphic programmes, audio, video, Telnet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), World Wide Web (WWW).For Okentunji (2000), Information Communication Technology facilitates access to electronic information which has become invaluable in complementing traditional library resources. From the researcher’s  point  of  view Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the convergence between the computer and communication technologies used to communicate and to create, manage and distribute information.Such technologies include computers, the internet, telephone, television, radio and audio visual equipment.The current development   requires Librarian to embrace the use of computers and other electronic devices in the performance of various tasks in the library. This  will necessitate that librarians should  possess in addition to academic and professional skills certain ICTskills to enable to be relevant and function properly in the digital environment.  According to the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), ICT skills can be defined as skills that enable an individual to use computers, software applications, databases and other technologies to achieve a wide variety of academic, work related and personal goals. Seenivasulu (2000)  defines ICT skills as the overall competencies (knowledge, know-how, skills and attitudes) necessary to create, store, analyze, organize, retrieve and disseminate digital information (text, images, sounds) in  digital libraries. For  Babu(2007), ICT skills generally are the familiarity with mobile phones, computers, the Internet and other Information and Communication Technologies equipment; the ability to use ICT features and applications and the ability to use ICTs to work individually or in teams. In fact, it involves the awareness of technologies and application of their relevance, use of technology for information and knowledge encompassing skills or abilities to access, retrieve, store, manage, integrate, evaluate, create and communicate information and knowledge.  It can also be expressed as the ability of operating computer systems to

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ICT SKILLS OF LIBRARIANS AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE SOUTH-SOUTH GEO-POLITICAL ZONE OF NIGERIA

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ICT SKILLS OF LIBRARIANS AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE SOUTH-SOUTH GEO-POLITICAL ZONE OF NIGERIA