Library Orientation and Information Literacy Skills as Correlates of Scholarly Research of Postgraduate Students of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria

Abstract

This study focused on library orientation, information literacy skills as correlate of scholarly research of postgraduate students at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. The university has ten colleges with various departments. A survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all 1,361 postgraduates in Diploma, Masters and Doctor of Philosophy from the ten (10) colleges in the institution. Out of the population, 900 postgraduates were randomly selected using purposive sampling technique, while data were collected using questionnaire. Findings of the study revealed that there is no library orientation programme for postgraduates at FUNAAB, while the only form of information literacy available to them is the use of computer course. It was also found that information literacy skills of postgraduate are still low given that majority of them either cannot access the library’s online catalogue or its electronic databases without assistance. The study therefore concluded that library orientation and information literacy skills are essential for postgraduate’s quality research output and recommends for inclusion of library orientation, information literacy and any other user education programmes into postgraduate curriculum. Also, seminars and workshops on the online catalogue and electronic databases for research should equally be periodically organised for postgraduate students.