Acquisition and Utilisation of ICT Skills of Library Professionals in some Nigerian Academic Libraries

Abstract

Living in a changing information age whereby information users not only have the knowledge but the capacity of generating information on their own, the library professionals must therefore possess technological related skills in order to compliment and support the transformational skills to make them become global professionals. Given this reality, it becomes necessary to investigate the acquisition and utilisation of ICT skills by library professionals in some Nigerian academic libraries. The study was a descriptive survey research type. Questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 160 library professionals. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics (percentages). The study revealed that acquisition of ICT skills is imperative to its utilisation. The study also revealed that epileptic power supply was the greatest challenge of ICT in Nigerian academic libraries. Recommendations made among others include that the management of University libraries should attend to the problem of epileptic power supply by ensuring either a standby generator or inverters or solar power to ensure the continuity of work in the case of power outage and they should endeavour to provide adequate fund for the acquisition of appropriate ICTs.