Availability of Library Resources and Research Productivity in Nigerian Medical Science Research Institutes

Abstract

The work embodied on this thesis is principally meant to describe availability of library resources and research productivity in five medical science research institutes in Nigeria. There were seven objectives which included the determination of: availability of library resources in the institutes; extent of accessibility to the resources; areas where the resources were majorly applied; extent of research productivity in the institutes; problems affecting provision of library resources in the institutes and measures to improve the identified problems affecting provision of resources. These were discussed using seven research questions and one null hypothesis as guides. The work which was anchored on Elgin William’s theory of Marginal Utility of Productivity adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population size of the study was 215 (198 researchers and 17 librarians) drawn from five research institutes of which 166 (83.8% of researchers) and 17 librarians were actually used for discussions. The area of study is Nigeria and the institutes are distributed in Abuja, Kaduna, Lagos, and Plateau states of the country. The research instruments used for data collection were questionnaire which appeared in two categories (type 1 and 2) and an observation check-list. The tools were all face validated and the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability analysis procedure was applied to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. About 85.1 percent of the questionnaires were returned and data obtained in the work were presented in tables and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation coefficient procedure was applied in research question five to determine the relationship which was found positive but not strong. Also, the null hypothesis was tested using the t-statistics and was found non significant (P> 0.05). The study found that periodical resources were inadequate against existing library standards but books and non print resources were sufficient in the libraries of these institutes; access to relevant resources like e-books, manuals, patent documents, handbooks and indexes were limited. The institutes met the required productivity benchmark at each rank of the researchers as required by their conditions of service. It was also found in the study that funds, lack of acquisition policies, poor management and high cost of resources were the major problems affecting the provision of information resources in these institutes. The work recommended library reforms in terms of strengthening the capabilities of the library and use of acquisition policies. Also, that the government should institute a separate library budget, grant tax- free importation of library materials and encourage continuous training of all cadres of staff of the research institutes amongst many others. It was concluded that since research is very essential, the findings if adopted is expected to encourage good provision and access to information and information materials that will in turn enhance productivity of medical science researchers towards production of interventions that would be used to address the health problems affecting Nigeria and her people. The work highlighted some limitations like general apathy on filling of questionnaires shown by respondents. Areas of further studies suggested include study of the impact of user services on development of interventions in Nigerian medical-based research institutes and study on the pattern of resource sharing amongst Nigerian medical-based research institutes.