THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN THE ACCREDITATION OF UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMMES: A CASE STUDY OF FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY MINNA, NIGER STATE.

This study sets to find out the role of academic libraries in the accreditation of undergraduate programme. The study is anchored by five objectives and is limited to Federal University of Technology, Minna with academic librarians as target respondent. The study adopted census design method as means of gathering data with a target population of 97 staff of the library and a total enumeration was used for the research. The questionnaire was used as instrument of data collection. One hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significant and data was presented in frequency, Tables and percentages. The hypotheses were analyzed using T-test method. The finding reveals that libraries are actively involved in all accreditation process since it makes available and accessible information resources that are necessary and critical for accreditation. It was concluded that a number of constraints such as inadequate funding and erratic power supply affect library role in accreditation. The study recommended sufficient financial support should be given to academic libraries to enable them function effective, alternative power supply should be worked on for library to have a stable power supply, enough skilled personnel with background knowledge in librarianship should be put in charge of the library and academic libraries should also invest in acquisition of electronic resources, as the world is going digital