Influence of ICT literacy Skills on Research Publication of Librarians in Federal Universities in South-East Nigeria

The study was carried out to explore the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) literacy skills on publication output of librarians in federal universities in the south-east, Nigeria. Three research questions were used for the research. A descriptive methodology was adopted for the research. A structured questionnaire was used as data collection instrument. The population of the study was 154 academic librarians in three federal universities in the southeast, out of which a sample of 77 was selected. Librarians in key areas like Acquisition, Cataloguing and Classification were included in the sample. Frequency, mean, standard deviation and percentage were used for data analysis. Major findings are; that librarians in the three federal universities had ICT literacy skills to a great extent. The result also showed that the librarians had sufficient publication output as a result of the application of their ICT literacy skills. The librarians were also found to have applied their ICT literacy skills in all areas of academic publications to a great extent. Inadequate fund to pay for ICT services was the most critical obstacle that affected respondents’ use of their ICT literacy skills in their publications. Another important challenge identified by the study was the high cost of access to available ICT services. Urgent improvement in the ICT development policy of the federal universities was recommended as the best way to improve the ICT literacy skills of the librarians. It was also recommended that the federal universities should pursue a bold and futuristic ICT literacy development policy to help librarians remain at the cutting edge of ICT literacy for purposes of their publications and other daily library services. There is also the need for the improvement in the ICT infrastructure of the universities to cover the whole gamut of the ICT literacy needs of the librarians. It was further recommended that a reward system be instituted in these institutional libraries which may not be limited to normal promotions but may include other forms of recognition and laurels