Awareness, knowledge and attitude of lecturers towards institutional repositories in university libraries in Nigeria
| Date | 12 November 2018 |
| Pages | 288-307 |
| Published date | 12 November 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-04-2018-0011 |
| Author | Francisca Nwakaego Okoroma |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Records management & preservation,Information repositories |
Awareness, knowledge and
attitude of lecturers towards
institutional repositories in
university libraries in Nigeria
Francisca Nwakaego Okoroma
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose –Content recruitme nt is a very crucial aspect of instituti onal repository (IR), and yet, a major
challenge in the imple mentation of an IR system. Literature highlig hted the numerous issues associated
with IR implementation in the Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, and the necessity to review and
tackle the divergent challenges of institutional repositories. This study aims to address the issues of
awareness, knowledge and attitude of lecturers towards institutional repositories in university libraries in
Nigeria.
Design/methodology –The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. A multistage
sampling procedure was used to sample 751 lecturers of the universities in Nigeria and eight heads of
the digitization section of the libraries. Data generated were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Findings –The findings revealed that majority of the lecturers in Nigeria are either unfamiliar with the
term IR or have very little level of knowledge on the aims and objectives of IR, and therefore have low
disposition to submitting their work. The study identified various options to resolve the problem of
awareness, knowledge and pessimistic attitude of lecturers towards IRs, includingmassive awareness and
enlightenmentprogrammes on the subject of IR and on copyright issues within the university communitiesin
Nigeria.
Originality –The study will enhance the awarenessand advocacy of IR in Nigeria. The awareness and
knowledgeof IR will bring about positive attitudinal changeof lecturers towards investing into IRs.
Keywords Awareness, Nigeria, Knowledge, University libraries, Institutional repositories,
Attitude of lecturers
Paper type Research paper
Background to the study
The essence of establishing universities is to advance the society through education,
research and manpower training. The university can hardly achieve these goals and
make any impact on the society without its intellectual output being well accessed
and utilised by the citizens and decision makers. Universities are, therefore, expected
to facilitate the documentation, preservation and dissemination of the intellectual
output of their faculty members, students and other staff for optimal access and
utilisation in order to realise their goals. The branch of the university responsible for
the management, provision and dissemination of information to support the effective
and expeditious attainment of the objectives of the university is the university
library. In this era of resource constraint, it is evident that many university libraries
are beset with dearth of information resources, especially in the local content, which
includes theses, dissertations and faculty research works. There is a huge glaring
divide between the explosive output of literature in the universities and the users of
DLP
34,4
288
Received17 April 2018
Revised20 September 2018
25September 2018
3 October2018
Accepted4 October 2018
DigitalLibrary Perspectives
Vol.34 No. 4, 2018
pp. 288-307
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2059-5816
DOI 10.1108/DLP-04-2018-0011
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2059-5816.htm
information, including decision makers. A survey conducted by Shulenburger (2007)
on strategies for disseminating the intellectual products of researchers indicated that
only a minute fraction provided any kind of affirmative response. The implication of
the result is that the dissemination of scholarship is left to the individual researcher.
Most African countries spend much resource on research, yet only a few individuals
access the results, especially the grey materials (Aina, 1995;Okoroma, 2011). For instance,
the National Universities Commission (NUC, 2016) reported that Nigeria has 141
universities, more universities than any country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and these
universities function as focal points for academic research in the country. This makes the
volume of research output originating from academic institutions and addressing local
problems in Nigeria very high. Yet, many of these research outputs addressing issues
endemic to the region are dwelling in obscurity. As a result of restriction of access to
knowledge, there is a restriction in the development of science and technology which has
severe effects on the society.Open access (OA) and open content emerged as an intervention
in the area of electronic journals.
The idea of OA was first noted in the mid-1990s. The main objective of the OA
initiatives is to remove the prevailing barriers and promote unhindered access to
electronic articles and scholarly communication. Institutional repository (IR) was an
outgrowth of the OA Initiative. IR is a system which facilitates the capture, storage,
preservation and dissemination of an institution’s intellectual outputs in an electronic
form (Rosenblum, 2008). Dhanavandan and Tamizhchelvan (2015) define IR as an
online archive for the intellectual output of a particular institution for collecting,
preserving and disseminating the research community which can be viewed as a set
of services that institutions offer to members of the academic community to maintain
and provide the digitised materials. Therefore, IRs play an important role in the
preservation and dissemination of institutional research outputs, which in turn
becomes a constituent part of a global research output (Crow, 2002). IRs not only act
to preserve an institution’s intellectual work product but will equally contribute to a
fundamental, albeit long-term change in the structure of scholarly communication.
According to Foster and Gibbons (2005: 11), “libraries build institutional repositories
because they provide an institution with a mechanism to showcase its scholarly
output, centralise and introduce efficiencies to the stewardship of digital documents
of value, and respond proactively to the escalating crisis in scholarly
communication”.
With the evident innumerable benefits of IRs, universities and other academic
institutions all over the world are embracing IR as a means of bridging the gap between
the authors, scholars, researchers’output and the various users of information, as well as
to preserve their wealth of knowledge. For instance, the concepts of OA and IR have come
to the forefront of Turkish information management landscape with the formation of the
Consortium of Anatolian University Libraries (ANKOS) in April, 2004.The Middle East
Technical University Library Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive was
established in 2003 and became the first Turkish member of the Networked Digital
Library of Theses and Dissertations. Ohio State University’s knowledge bank provides
another example of a project that addresses the objectives of IR while serving broader
digital resource goals. Growing out of the University’s Distance Learning/Continuing
Education Committee, the knowledge bank plans to include all of the digital assets and
information services available to the Ohio State University (OSU) community, whether
created by OSU constituents or not.
Institutional
repositories
289
To continue reading
Request your trial