Student-librarians’ Perception and Utilization of Scholarly Electronic Resources

Abstract

The perception of students about electronic resources is very paramount as it is a determinant to its utilization or lack of utilization by the students. This study is an investigation on student-librarians’ perception and utilization of electronic resources. The study employed a descriptive survey design with a sampled population of 100 student-librarians derived from four universities in Southeast, Nigeria offering Library and Information Science while it was guided by four research questions formulated in line with the research objectives. The main instrument used to gather data for this study is a 4-point Likert scale structured questionnaire that had items on student-librarians’ level of awareness and extent of utilization of e-resources as well as challenges in the utilization of e-resources by the students.. The data collected were analyzed using frequency and percentages. The outcome of this study brings to fore the importance of the awareness of e-resources to enhancing research and innovation among student-librarians. The result further revealed that despite efforts by academic institutions to make scholarly e-resources available, they seem to be under-utilized by student-librarians and by extension students. The study among others recommended more practical training for student-librarians as well as librarians so as to familiarize them with several scholarly e-resources and their functionalities as it will assist student-librarians, stakeholders and policy makers comprehend how to harness human capital by ensuring quality education through the optimal utilization of scholarly e-resources for teaching, research and innovation as well as need for academic libraries to carry out from time-to-time, publicity of their services that they know are beneficial to the student as well as current awareness services with a view to alerting the students of the availability of new e-resources.