Abstract
The paper adopted descriptive survey research method to assess collection development policy and utilization of information resources in academic libraries in rivers state, Nigeria. The population of the study includes 42 professional librarians in three university libraries – University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State University, and Ignatius Ajuru University. Census sampling technique was used to sample all the 42 librarians. Three objectives guided the study. Self-developed questionnaire was utilized for data collection and 100% return rate was obtained. Descriptive statistics of mean (x̄) and standard deviation (±) was used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that that collection development policy has a positive influence on the utilization of information resources in academic libraries (x̄: 2.84 ≥ 2.5), several factors affecting collection development policy in promoting the utilization of information resources in academic libraries (x̄: 2.73 ≥ 2.5), and there are several ways to improve the effectiveness of collection development policy in ensuring the utilization of information resources (x̄: 3.57 ≥ 2.5). The study concluded that Libraries without a collection development policy or poorly written collection policy would suffer waste of fund, poorly offered library services, and low patronage or poor usage of the information resources by users. Among others, the study recommended that continuous training of library staff concerned with the activity of collection development, academic libraries should explore various ways of generating funds independently such as the offering of photocopy services to users, and academic libraries should learn to patronize local but quality information resources.
Published Version
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