A Survey Study on the Adoption and Implementation of Automation Projects in Federal University Libraries in the South-West of Nigeria

Abstract

This article reports on a survey study on the adoption and implementation of automation projects in federal university libraries in the south-west of Nigeria (SWN). The objectives are to ascertain the implementation status of automation projects, discuss the accruable benefits, investigate the library management system software being used, determine the modules already activated and fully implemented and their web presence, highlight the challenges encountered, draw conclusions and recommendations on enhancing successful implementation of library automation projects in Nigeria. The method used for gathering data for the study is questionnaire-based survey, using google form template. The findings of the study are that all the six federal university libraries in the SWN have adopted and implemented automation; two out of them are using open source integrated library automation software (Koha), one library uses in-house built integrated library system (ILS), while the remaining three use different proprietary software for their automation projects; and all the ILSs being used for automation projects are interoperable. The conclusion from the study is that the effective performance of libraries lies in the ability to access research materials and other relevant information contents with remarkable ease. This becomes achievable when libraries adopt and implement automation in their respective domains.