ACCESSIBILITY AND UTILIZATION OF LEGAL DEPOSIT MATERIALS IN NATIONAL LIBRARY OF NIGERIA.

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to determine the accessibility and utilization of legal deposit materials in the National Library of Nigeria. The objectives were to find out the types; the extent of accessibility; methods of accessibility; nature of users; the extent of utilization; the purpose of  utilization; the constraints associated with the accessibility and utilization; the strategies that could enhance accessibility and utilization of the legal deposit materials in the National Library of Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was used for the study and multi-staged sampling technique was applied. The first stage was purposive sampling while the second stage and third stage were simple random and proportionate (stratified) random sampling technique, 1% of the registered users (218) and 40% of library staff (52) in seven branches of the National Library of Nigeria were used as sample size. Fifty-two (52) (copies of the questionnaire were distributed to the library staff while forty-seven ((47) were returned (ie 90.4%) and two hundred and eighteen (218) copies were distributed to the library users while two hundred and five (205) copies of the questionnaire were returned (ie 94%). In analyzing the data obtained, frequency counts, simple percentages, and mean x were used as the statistical methods. The findings revealed that there are different types of legal deposit materials in the National Library of Nigeria; that few are accessible to a great extent; that the methods of accessibility includes through the staff, catalogue kardex and indexes; that different category of users make use of the few accessible materials to a great extent and for different purposes; that there are some constraints associated with accessibility and utilization of the legal deposit materials such as poor bibliographic services, closed access given to users. poor quality of materials submitted by publishers and poor digitization of materials among others. Many strategies were suggested by the library staff and users that could enhance accessibility and utilization. They include granting of monitored open access, provision of adequate bibliographic services, accepting of only the perfect copies from publishers and digitization of these legal deposit materials. Based on the findings, it was recommended that  the National Library Act should be reviewed, enlightenment , adequate funding and power supply should all be provided, purchasing of materials not submitted and adequate bibliographic services like indexes, abstracts and online catalogue should also be provided. Open access under close monitoring should be given to users to encourage maximum accessibility and utilization.