Awareness and Utilization of Databases Subscribed to by FUTO Library among FUTO Academic Staff (Published)
This paper is an attempt to study the issues of database Awareness and utilization by Academic Staff members in Federal University of Technology, Owerri with a view to study the exposure of Academics staff to the University’s subscribed database resources. It also aims to bring to light the challenges that confront the users and recommend some remedial measures for its improvement. A test-retest reliability method of two weeks interval was conducted, response obtained were subjected to Pearson Product Moment Correlation method and a reliability co-efficient of 0.78 was obtained. The Random Sampling Technique together with a Questionnaire was used for data collection on 100 out of a population size of 1,003 academic staff members and only 74 responded giving a response rate of 74 percent.Descriptive and inferential Statistics including Frequencies count, charts, mean score, Relative Important index (R.I.I) and Percentages were used in reporting the findings. The study confirmed that the level of awareness of the subscribed electronic information resources or databases by the Library Management is rather low as well as that of the level of utilization. The paper records that the reasons why academic staff members of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri use databases; were mainly for research (48%) and current awareness (49%). It suggests further for an improvement in the training of the academic staff members , efficient power supply, and access to facilities with high Internet speed and subscription to more databases (e-resources) by the University Library.
Keywords: Academic, Database, Subscribed, Utilization, awareness