Use of College/Faculty Libraries by Readers, Vis-a-Vis the Main Library: the case of the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Faculty or College libraries complements the services of the main library and helps to bring library services closer to the users in their respective faculties/colleges.This study appraised the Colleges of Engineering and Veterinary Medicine libraries which started in the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta recently, to deduce feed-back from the users, which could serve as reference point and guide to the take-off of other college libraries within the university. The two college libraries can sit twenty-five (25) readers each at a time, hence, a structured questionnaire was designed to elicit the desired information. Hence, fifty (50) copies of the questionnaire was administered on all the users with the cooperation and assistance of the librarian-in-charge, in both cases. All the fifty (50) questionnaires were well completed by the users, returned and used for this study,which represents one hundred percent (100%) response rate. The results revealed that the establishment of the two college libraries were embraced by the users and maximally used by them because the libraries were sited within easy reach and the materials are quite accessible to them. However, the study also revealed that the users were dissatisfied with the closing time of the library, the book loan and photocopying services and demanded that internet services be extended to the library too. Recommendations were made to further boost the use of the college libraries.