The Availabilty, Needs and Use of Information Sources by Lecturers and Researchers of the Faculty of Environmental Science, University of Jos, Nigeria

Abstract

This article investigated the extent of availability, needs and use of information by lecturers and researchers of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences of University of Jos, Jos Nigeria. Sampling techniques with questionnaire instrument was used for data collection, data were analysed by the use of statistical packages for the social sciences software and statistics employed was simple percentages. Results were presented in a tabular form. The study revealed that the readily available and very often used channels of information are colleagues in the Faculty/Departments; the extent of need of dictionaries and encyclopedia as reference information resources by the lecturers is very often. Most used method of locating references by the lecturers is still colleagues internally. Use of databases among the lecturers is only fair-and only EBSCO-Host, AGORA and e-Granary are fairly put to use. More than fifty percent of the lecturers rate the subject librarian "Good" and above. The heavy dependence on the availability and need of their colleagues in the Faculty/Departments including searching their own shelves for locating references for their scholarly work has related the use of both print, e-resources and the subject Librarian in the Library. Recommendation appropriate to the situation at hand was proffered