Browsing by Author "Idoniboye-Obu, Tamunotonye Ibimina."

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An analysis of user education programmes in selected University libraries in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
(2017) Idoniboye-Obu, Tamunotonye Ibimina.; Hoskins, Ruth Geraldine Melonie.
This study presents the results of the survey research on the topic: An analysis of user education programmes in selected university libraries in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The study was conducted in four university libraries in KwaZulu-Natal. They are: Durban University of Technology (DUT); Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT); University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and University of Zululand (UNIZULU). Three of the four institutions under study are multi-campus institutions which operate academic libraries for the various programmes on their campuses. The conceptual frameworks/principal theories that informed the study were: the draft guidelines on information literacy by the Committee for Higher Education Librarians in South Africa (CHELSA) (Esterhuizen and Kuhn 2010); and the guidelines for instruction programmes in academic libraries approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) of 2011; and the information literacy competency standards for higher education approved by the American Association for Higher Education 1999. These are guidelines that help to direct service providers while administering UEPs to their users in the libraries. The theories were the information search process (ISP) model which was developed by Kuhlthau in the 1980s and 1990s and has been used to examine theoretical concepts within the library and information science discipline, and the relational model of information literacy developed by Bruce in 1997. The study used a mixed method approach for data collection, adopting both qualitative and quantitative methods. Since the population was small, it carried out a census of all population elements. The population comprised two main cohorts: subject librarians and library management staff. The main instrument for the collection of quantitative data was a self-administered questionnaire which was administered to the subject librarians (subject librarians and training librarians). The second cohort comprised university librarians/directors, campus/branch librarians, principal librarians and an information service manager/manager academic services. This cohort was interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. The quantitative data was coded manually and analysed with the help of SPSS software Version 23.0 and used to produce charts, frequency tables and cross tabulations where necessary. The qualitative data was analysed using thematic content analysis. Both instruments were pretested to determine reliability and validity. The pretesting of both instruments involved twelve (12) librarians working in both South Africa and Nigeria. Five of the pre-test participants were lecturers; two were post-doctoral fellows in the same Information Studies discipline in the School of Social Sciences of the University of KwaZulu-Natal; and the other five were librarians working in different universities in Nigeria but who at the time of the study were doctoral students in the Library and Information Studies in the School of Social Sciences of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus. The pretest was designed to ensure there was clarity of questions and to eliminate any in the research instrument. The response rate for subject librarians was 46 out of 49 respondents (93.8%) while that for library management staff was 70% (See Table 5.1). The study found out that all four university libraries operate formal user education programmes (UEPs) although the concept of formal UEPs was interpreted differently by some of the subject librarians who sought to interpret it as credit bearing. It was also revealed that out of the four university libraries only one library operated its UEPs on the basis of a policy document according to the interview responses; all the others said there was no separate policy for the library aside from the university’s one. In other words, the university policy document formed the basis of UEPs. This implies a possible lack of adherence to national and international library standards. Another finding of the study was that all four university libraries deliver similar content in their UEPs and UEPs are for all categories of users of the library ranging from under-graduate to academic staff. It was also revealed that UEPs were benchmarked against their institutions’ standards and goals before consideration of local or international library standards like those of LIASA and ACRL outside their institutions. The study also revealed that UEPs in all four university libraries were evaluated by various means (as per section 5.4.20, Table 5.9). The findings of the study further revealed that in all four university libraries, with regards to population of staff in terms of gender, there were more females than males (as par section 5.2.3 and section 5.5.1, Table 5.15). In terms of originality, the study was conducted in four university libraries in KwaZulu-Natal which has not been researched before. The study discovered that user education is still regarded as a critical activity by libraries and it is the foundation upon which users are able to build information knowledge and skills to be able to effectively use all the resources and facilities provided by the library. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: for UEPs to be relevant in this 21st century, constant evaluation is needed to upgrade its value to benefit users; there should be separate UEPs for postgraduates and undergraduates; there be designated subject librarians for UEPs in order to effectively deliver the programmes to users. Another recommendation from the study is that a policy document be developed in all university libraries to guide the development and execution of the UEPs to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved when the programmes are evaluated. It is also recommended that libraries do more to market and advertise UEPs to enable students entering into higher institutions to benefit from them by being able to use all resources and facilities in the library to the fullest.
The use of library resources by doctoral students of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, College of Humanities, Pietermaritzburg campus.
(2013) Idoniboye-Obu, Tamunotonye Ibimina.; Hoskins, Ruth Geraldine Melonie.
The purpose of this study was to examine the use of library resources by doctoral students of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), College of Humanities, Pietermaritzburg campus. The study investigated the extent of the use of the library resources by doctoral students in the College of Humanities, the type of library resources used and the factors that influenced such use. The study also looked at the competency of doctoral students to use them. The study population consisted of registered doctoral students in the College of Humanities as at April 2012 when the data was collected. Out of a total of 118 questionnaires distributed, 99 doctoral students responded, which yielded a response rate of 83.9%. The method that the research took was triangulation where both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. The researcher used one-on-one interviews with subject librarians at the UKZNP Library and a questionnaire as data collection instruments. The quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 21, while the qualitative data was analyzed using thematic content analysis. The questionnaire was pre-tested before it was used. The findings of the study revealed that a majority of the doctoral students did use the UKZNP Library resources for their research studies. As regards the importance of the library resources, out of 98 respondents who responded to the question, 77 (78.6%) of the respondents indicated that their use of library resources was because of its importance to their research study. Regarding the dependency on library resources, out of 98 respondents who responded to the question, 60 (61.2%) respondents said their extent of use of the library‟s resources was because they were very dependent on the resources of the library for their research study. In terms of usage of the library‟s resources, out of the 99 respondents who responded to the question, 50 (53.8%) said they use the library‟s resources more for their research study. When investigating the types of library resources used by doctoral students in the College of Humanities, 85 (86.7%) respondents used electronic databases, while 77 (78.6%) used print materials (books and journals); 68 (69.4%) used the inter-library loan service and 60 (61.2%) used theses and dissertations amongst other resources. With regards to the influencing factors for such use of library resources by doctoral students in the College of Humanities, the study found that 93 (97.9%) influencing factors for the respondents was to borrow materials, like printed books and journal articles, for their research studies, while for 52 (54.7%) respondents, a factor was to use inter-library loan services for their research studies and for 38 (40.0%) it was to search the databases for information for their research studies. Furthermore, the study also wanted to determine how competent the doctoral students in the College of Humanities were in using the different library resources of the UKZNP Library. Out of 99 respondents, 79 (79.8%) considered themselves to be competent users of the different library resources with particular reference to electronic resources, while 16.2 (16.2%) considered themselves not to be competent and four (4.0%) did not respond to the question. Having seen the extent of use of the library resources by doctoral students in the College of Humanities, the type of resources the doctoral students used, the factors that influenced such use and the competency of use, the study also discovered that there were challenges that these doctoral students encountered while using the library‟s resources. Some of these challenges were: difficulties in locating resources on shelves as a result of the misplaced and disorganized arrangement of material; out of date printed resource material and insufficient time for borrowing books on reserve. With electronic databases, some of the challenges were that important journals and books were not available electronically, remote access was difficult because of passwords and logins, and some electronic databases only offer abstracts rather than full text articles. In addition, electronic databases were often very slow to conclude searches. A final challenge encountered by the doctoral students was that subject librarians were always very busy attending to students and sometimes not available to help. Recommendations based on the findings of the study were also presented in chapter five and six of this study. Suggestions on how the library can better serve the doctoral students of the UKZNP campus were also given in the concluding chapter.