Abstract
This study reports on a survey conducted to explore the awareness and extent of utilization of The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) database resources by academic staff at the faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria. Structured Questionnaire was designed and used for data collection. Eighty copies of the questionnaire were randomly distributed to respondents in their offices; 60 copies of these were retrieved and used for data analysis (with 75.0% response rate). The findings of the study indicate that although vast majority (88.3%) of academic staff in the faculty of Agriculture are aware of TEEAL database resources, their utilization is rather low (46.7%) in teaching and research, the frequency of usage is equally low, as most (46.7%) respondents use these databases “occasionally”. From the findings of the study, most respondents used TEEAL abstracts for research and publication (80.0%), for better research output (53.3%) for insights to various topics for lectures (50.0%) and keep abreast with current trends in the field of study (50.0%). Major factors that impede awareness and utilization of TEEAL databases by academic staff of the faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria include lack of awareness of the available databases by the university library, lack of access to TEEAL databases in the University library, lack of time to spend in searching TEEAL databases in the Library and inadequate information skills to use TEEAL, and improper orientation on the use.
Highlights
The emergence of information and communication Technology (ICT) has led to the development of electronic libraries in universities around the world
Edem and Ani (2015) studied the development of electronic libraries in Nigerian universities and found out that all responding universities have developed their electronic libraries and varieties of electronic resources are accessible in those libraries, the most popular ones are ejournals online and offline databases
The study would explore the following specific objectives: 1. To find out if academic staff at the faculty of Agriculture are aware of the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) database in the University Library
Summary
The emergence of information and communication Technology (ICT) has led to the development of electronic libraries in universities around the world. The information seeking behavior of academic staff in universities is shifted in favour of usage of electronic resources than the traditional printed resources This is essentially attributed to a number of factors which include awareness, ease of access, efficiency, currency, cost effectiveness among others in developing countries, with the inability of the management of the. Edem: Faculty Awareness and Utilization of the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library for Teaching and Research: A Study of Academic Staff in the University of Calabar, Nigeria universities and librarians to meet up with the challenges of regular subscriptions of electronic journals, online databases due to general financial constraints. In view of the importance of utilization of online / offline databases in teaching/ research, the present study would investigate the awareness and extent of utilization of TEEAL by academic staff in faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria. Various national workshops have been organized to train librarians on how to organize user education / training to their library users on awareness and utilization of the acquired databases
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