Awareness and Use of Open Access (OA) Initiatives in Ensuring Free Access to Information Among Librarians in Academic Libraries in Nigeria (Published)
This study was carried out to investigate the Awareness and Use of Open Access Initiatives in Ensuring Free Access to Information in Academic Libraries in Nigeria. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. Five research objectives and five research questions were formulated to guide the study. The population of this study comprised librarians in academic libraries in South-South, Nigeria. Data for the study was collected using a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher and was administered online using Google forms. 62 forms were filled and submitted from the professional platforms. The study used frequency counts and percentages to analyze the data. The findings revealed that librarians in academic libraries in South-South, Nigeria understand OA initiatives to be free availability of online information resources and promotion of free access to scholarly literature. Findings also revealed that Institutional repository, Open access publishing, open access journals and Directory of Open Access Journals are the initiatives that librarians are mostly aware of. The study also found that the OA initiatives mostly utilized by Librarians included open access journals, Institutional repository and DOAJ. Further findings also showed that most librarians felt that the relevance of OA initiatives included: It enables researchers’ access relevant materials, wider accessibility, Information is unrestricted, increased author visibility and Information is available 24/7. Lack of awareness, lack of relevant policies and technophobia were the major challenges of OA initiatives. This implies that librarians are mostly aware of OA initiatives and also utilize them. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that efforts should be made by librarians in keeping aware of OA initiatives and utilize them properly for access to information.
Keywords: Academic Libraries, Librarians, Open Access, Utilization, initiatives
Sustaining the Relevance of Institutional Repository in Academic Libraries in Nigeria: A University of Jos Perspective (Published)
Institutional repositories (IRs) are one of the fastest growing mediums of accessing Electronic information resources in Academic Libraries (ALs) today. They have potentially increased the public value, ranking, prestige, and visibility of researchers, and relevant universities. Despite the important and rapid growth of IRs, few efforts have been made to systematically review and integrate the findings of various research studies to ensure the sustenance of IRs in Nigeria. Hence, this paper carried out a review on the IR of University of Jos to provide a better way of sustaining it in the Institution and Nigeria by extension. The study employed a longitudinal research method and systematic literature review (SLR). Findings showed that the viewers from the local host (Nigeria), is not encouraging as expected. The IR challenges include; limited qualified manpower and network issues. On the way forward, the study provided a roadmap for better efforts in sustaining institutional repositories by highlighting the basic guidelines for the successful viability of IRs in the Nigerian higher academic public institutions.
Keywords: Academic Libraries (ALs), Information Communication Technology (ICT), Information resources, Institutional Repository (IR), Open Access