ASSESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIBRARIANS’ ABILITY TO IDENTIFY INFORMATION NEEDS AND RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined relationship between librarians’ ability to identify information needs and research productivity in university libraries in South-South, Nigeria. A research questions and hypothesis guided the study. Correlational research design was employed. The population of the study was 121 librarians of 7 federal universities in the South-South states of Nigeria. Total enumeration sampling method was adopted. Kuder–Richardson method was used to establish the internal reliability coefficient, yielding the score 0.56 and Cronbach alpha for questionnaire yielding 0.95. The instrument of the study was both cognitive test and structured questionnaire. Cognitive test solicited information on the ability of librarians to recognize information needs. While structured questionnaire was for research productivity of the librarians. The instruments were analyzed using inferential statistics. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient r was used to answer the research questions. The multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis. The study revealed that, there is weak positive relationship between librarians’ score on the ability to identify information needs and research productivity in the federal universities in the South-South, Nigeria. The findings of this study will novel fact that help to clarify existing uncertainties and ambiguity in the link between some dimensions of information literacy skills and research productivity. Therefore, the study recommends that university management as a matter of concern should organize training and retraining on information literacy skills for librarians so that they can embed the ability to identify their information which would help them publish quality research output.