THE ROLE OF DIGITAL LIBRARIANS IN SUPPORTING TEACHING, LEARNING AND RESEARCH IN UNIVERSITIES: A SURVEY OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN IMO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study was carried out to ascertain the contributions of digital librarians to teaching, learning and research in university libraries in Imo State Nigeria. It therefore sought to uncover the various digital services rendered by university librarians and how these services affect teaching, learning and research activities in the selected institutions. Moreover, this study also investigated the problems facing digital services and solutions to the problems in the selected universities. A descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The population comprises of 175 professional librarians in the selected institutions. A well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection and Cronbach Alpha test was used to determine the reliability of the instrument. The data collected were analysed using frequency counts, percentages, means and standard deviation. The study revealed that digital librarians offer various services including but not limited to electronic database searching, institutional repository, digital catalogue, e-resources management, virtual reference service, digital information literacy, digital access to information resources. The respondents revealed that digital librarians contribute to teaching in the institutions by providing information literacy programmes, inclusion of library resources in learning management system and providing resources and digital resources management assistance to faculty members. Further, the respondents indicated that digital librarians contribute to learning activities by providing information literacy, teaching students to use digital resources for learning, teaching research skills, and ensuring academic integrity. In addition, the study found out that digital librarians contribute to research activities by providing literature searches, institutional repository, plagiarism detection, bibliometric analysis, scholarly publishing and research data management. The study further revealed that the major problems confronting digital services in the selected institutions are insufficient fund, inadequate internet services, inadequate infrastructure, electricity, lack of skilled personnel, lack of professional development, high subscription fees, security issues and lack of institutional support. However, the respondents suggested that ways of improving digital services in the institutions include availing sufficient funds, acquiring modern ICT equipment, constant staff training, encouraging good internet services, adopting new technologies, institutional policies and collaborative efforts of librarians, staff and institution in providing digital services. Therefore, this study recommends that more efforts should be made in providing digital services in the selected institutions.

DOI: 10.66407/WB/72.2.15