Information Service Delivery and Its Impact on Students’ Academic Achievement in Tertiary Institution Libraries within the Buea Municipality

Abstract

This study examines Information Service Delivery and its impact on student’s academic achievement in tertiary institution libraries within Buea Municipality. The study was guided by two research questions. (1) How does indexing service impact students’ academic achievement in tertiary institution libraries in the Buea Municipality? (2) How does referencing service impact students’ academic achievement in tertiary institution libraries in the Buea Municipality? These questions were transformed into two research hypotheses. The research design used for this study is the convergent research design. The target population was 15994 and the accessible population was 340 students, 42 staff and 3 directors. The sample size was made up of 42 students and three directors and 21 staff selected using simple random sampling technique. The instruments for data collection were a questionnaire for students that use the library and library staff while the interview guide was for library directors. The Data collected from the field were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. The data from interview were analyzed thematically, while for inferential statistics, the data were analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient so as to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that, indexing services and referencing services have a relationship with students’ academic achievement. Based on the finding, the following recommendations were made to the Higher educational authority. The authority should add more modern and constantly update the libraries with information resource so as to meet up with the day to day need of their users. The university council should allocate more money to the library so as to ease the purchase of library resources.