Information is very crucial to the development of mankind. It is also an asset that is necessary to facilitate human activities. It is for this reason that libraries are established to meet information needs of citizens, particularly, those of the out- of – school young prisoners in Nigerian prisons. The study, therefore, attempted an investigation into the availability and utilisation of library resources for the prisoners. The sample was drawn from prison population of prisoners in two major cities randomly selected in South Western Nigeria. The sample drawn was 500 out of the total population of 1,625 in the sampled prisons. Questionnaire titled: Availability and Utilization of Library information Resources for Prisoners ( AULIRPO) was used to collect data on availability and utilization of library information resources by the out- of- school prisoners and descriptive statistics of survey type was employed to analyse the data collected. The result indicated that only newspapers, textbooks, dictionaries and encyclopedias are the only available and frequenly utilised library information resources by the out of school prisoners who are discovered to be in their productive ages of between 45- 54 years. Challenges like inadequate provision of library cresources, poor funding and lack of good building facilities affect prisoners’ utilisation of library information resources. It was concluded that out- of- school prisoners have access to a few library resources and it was recommended that government should be more sensitive to providing befitting library facilities and relevant library information resources to out- of- school prisoners, among others.
Keywords: Availability, Library Resources, Prisoners, Utilization, out- of- school
