Library Stakeholders’ Perception And Involvements in Information Literacy Initiatives (ILI) in Federal Universities in North East, Nigeria

Abstract

Information literacy (IL) initiatives is an initiative which emphases on the acquisition and facilitation of critical thinking and communication skills that are transferable across subject disciplines, functional knowledge that are meaningful and related to what is acquired to enable students become information literate individuals who can mastered the general information processes, and specific processes that could allow them to effectively use information sources and resources with the ability to recognize and accept any information gap, responding positively to the need for information, constructing alternative strategies for reducing information gap logically, evaluate and assess the effectiveness of the information found, synthesizes, store and make firm decision without prejudice of academic and research work standard. The study therefore, investigated the library stakeholders’ perception and involvement in IL initiatives in federal universities in north east, Nigeria. To achieve the purpose of the study, six (6) specific objectives and six (6) research questions guided the study. Indeed, Teacher Librarian Collaboration theory (TLC) was used. Descriptive research design was the method used for the study with the population of two thousand two hundred and thirty five (2235). Thus, multi stage sampling technique was employed to draw the sample for this study. The first stage was the purposive sampling of the key library stakeholders according to functional federal universities in north east Nigeria. A total of three hundred and ninety one respondents were selected. The second stage was the proportionate stratified random sampling of faculty, university curriculum planning committee (UCPC) and librarians from the five universities. Applying this technique, the sample was drawn from each university as follows: Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, (ATBU) Bauchi 108; Federal University Kashere, (FUK) Gombe, 23; Federal University of Technology, (FUT Yola), 88; Federal University Wukari, (FUW), 19; University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), 153 making a total number of 391 library stakeholders. A six cluster questionnaire containing 66 items and semi-structured interview schedule, named Library Stakeholders’ Perception and Involvement in Information Literacy Initiatives in Federal Universities in North East, Nigeria (LIPILIQ), was developed and face validated by three experts from the department of library and information science, university of Nigeria, Nsukka and educational foundation of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi and were used for data collection. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS version 20) to determine the mean and standard deviations of the responses. While, the interview responses were analyzed qualitatively and complemented the questionnaire result. The findings of the study indicated a low provision of components of IL initiatives and low understanding of the concept of IL initiatives with low adoption of pedagogical strategies in facilitating the knowledge and IL skills to the students. It further revealed the non availability of policy statements and curriculum on IL initiatives and lack of support from the university authorities, limited expertise in librarianship, and prioritization of other course disciplines over IL were among the problems identified by the study. Thus, the study recommended among others that: digital literacy, information literacy skills training, database literacy and database literacy should be provided for students. NUC in collaboration with the managements of federal universities in North East, Nigeria should organize and sponsor workshops, seminars, conference s inaugural lectures to abreast and educate the library stakeholders on the emerging trend of IL initiatives among other things.