The Extent of Awareness and Adoption of UNESCO Conservation Guidelines Restoration Practices by the University Library Staff in South –East Nigeria (Published)
This study is to find out the extent of awareness and adoption of UNESCO Conservation Guidelines restoration practices by the university library staff in south east Nigeria. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. The statistical tests used in the data analysis included the summated score and t-test. The research questions were analyzed using the Summated score while the hypotheses were tested using the t-test. The result shows that university library staff extent of awareness of UNESCO restoration practices is accepted as being above average for only three (3) out of the twenty-two (22) items considered under UNESCO restoration practices. The accepted items are those with mean scores greater than the expected value of 3.00 on a 5-point Likert scale. We therefore conclude that there is a significant difference between university library staff extent of awareness and extent of adoption of UNESCO restoration practices. Furthermore, the result also indicates that the overall extent of awareness of UNESCO restoration practices by university library staff is 1.94 with a standard deviation of 0.27 on a 5-point Likert scale. The computed t-value is −64.540 with an associated significance probability of 1.0000, which is greater than 0.05. Thus, the test is not significance at 5% level of significance, since P>0.05. We therefore conclude that the extent of awareness of restoration practices in the UNESCO Conservation Guidelines by university library staff in South-East Nigeria is below average. The result also shows that the university library staff extent of adoption of UNESCO restoration practices is accepted as being above average for only three (3) out of the twenty-two (22) items considered under UNESCO restoration practices. The accepted items are those with mean scores greater than the expected value of 3.00 on a 5-point Likert scale. Furthermore, the reslt also indicates that the overall extent of adoption of UNESCO restoration practices by university library staff is 1.57 with a standard deviation of 0.15 on a 5-point Likert scale. The computed t-value is −155.561 with an associated significance probability of 1.0000, which is greater than 0.05. Thus, the test is not significance at 5% level of significance, since P>0.05. We therefore conclude that the extent of adoption of restoration practices in the UNESCO Conservation Guidelines by university library staff in South-East Nigeria is below average. Based on the findings, we recommends that: Government should sponsor Library staff to workshops, seminars and conferences nationally and internationally on the UNESCO Conservation Guidelines for acquisition of better Knowledge needed in using the UNESCO Conservation Guidelines.The university should provide an enabling environment to help the university library staff work effectively and use the UNESCO Conservation Guidelines in their restoration practices. The University Library staff should visit other Institutions of higher learning that uses UNESCO Conservation Guidelines for better knowledge, improvement and greater productivity.
Keywords: Adoption, Extent, Staff, awareness, restoration practices