Management and usage of open access scholarly online resources in university libraries in Nigeria. Librarians’ viewpoints
| Published date | 07 November 2016 |
| Date | 07 November 2016 |
| Pages | 974-984 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-08-2015-0140 |
| Author | Emmanuel Dickson Chigbu,Ezinne O. Njoku,Ngozi Uzoagba |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Management and usage of open
access scholarly online resources
in university libraries in Nigeria
Librarians’ viewpoints
Emmanuel Dickson Chigbu, Ezinne O. Njoku and Ngozi Uzoagba
Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this research is to ascertain from academic librarians in Nigeria their
knowledge of open access online resources (OASOR), how their libraries manage these resources and
how they are used by their readers. This is an alternative source of resource provision which librarians
needed to adopt, in view of dwindling budgets.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey design was adopted for the study. The study was
conducted during an annual general meeting/conference of the Nigerian Library Association in June
2014. Interview and eye witness accounts were also used to complement the questionnaire. Random
sampling technique was used to select 312 librarians from the 720 attendees from the six geopolitical
zones of Nigeria. Data were analyzed using the weighted mean on a Likert scale.
Findings – The result of the nding revealed that some of the academic libraries sampled have access
to limited open access (OA) resources from AGORA, HINARI, OARE and EBSCOhost databases. The
management procedure adopted included downloading of relevant resources for their readers;
providing hard copies of some of the downloads; and giving their readers access to the databases via
their University websites. Others include offering consultancy services to academic departments and
organizing training seminars to their users for direct access to the databases. The OASOR received
adequate utility rate by users.
Originality/value – Dwindling economies and coping with current trends of information
management in the contemporary world necessitated the use of information communication technology
to avail OA resources to anchor education, research and human capital development in Nigeria. This
will enable the country attain the Millennium Development Goal.
Keywords Databases, Nigeria, Management, Scholarly journals, Internet access,
Open access resources
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The concept of open access (OA) to scholarly publications has become common parlance
in academic discourse because of its usefulness. OA is a relatively new method of
providing information via e-journals and other resources. Scholarly literature becomes
freely available for the public to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to
the full texts of articles on the internet once it enters the OA arena. Readers are free to use
OA items for any lawful purpose, without nancial, legal or technical barriers. Before
the inception of OA, print journals were the norm in libraries, but were becoming too
expensive to subscribe to for many libraries in Nigeria. This brought about restricted
access to scholarly journals, evident in near-empty shelves of current materials in
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
EL
34,6
974
TheElectronic Library
Vol.34 No. 6, 2016
pp.974-984
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-08-2015-0140
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