UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SUPPORT INITIATIVE FOR E-LEARNING IN NORTH-CENTRAL ZONE OF NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

The study investigated university libraries support initiatives for e-learning, technologies involved in e-learning, problems of e-learning, and the strategies to be adopted to enhance e-learning. The design of the study was descriptive survey design. The area of the study covered the north central zone of Nigeria, three universities libraries were selected from the zone to represent other university libraries. The population of the study comprises of one hundred and twenty librarians and para professional librarians from the three selected university libraries. The instruments used for data collection, were questionnaires, checklist and interviews. The questionnaire was titled “University Libraries Support Initiative Questionnaires (ULSIEQ),” which contained six (6) sections, with a total of one hundred and ten (110) items. The questionnaires were administered to the respondents directly. The data collected was analyzed using percentages, frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations.   The findings of the study indicate that most of the electronic resources and services required for the development of e-learning exist in university libraries, that the level of information literacy skills of library staff was satisfactory. That online catalogues, abstracts, indexes, institutional repositories, CD-ROMs, library databases, open access initiatives etc, are the university library support initiatives for e-learning. The study also revealed that the problems militating against e-learning includes: low internet bandwidth, high cost of electronic resources, poor or erratic power supply, etc The recommendations raised to solve this problem include: Government should subsidize the prices of electronic devices, provision of steady power supply, improvement of internet service provision, etc.