LIBRARIANS’ ICT SKILLS AND EFFECTIVE LIBRARY SERVICE DELIVERY IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN RIVERS STATE

The study investigated Librarians’ ICT skills and Effective Library Service Delivery in University Libraries in Rivers State, Nigeria. The study adopted a correlational research design. Three objectives and three research questions guided the study and three null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study was 56 comprised librarians in the five university libraries in Rivers State from which purposive sampling technique was used to select three university libraries in Rivers State. Census sampling technique was adopted where all the 46 librarians in the three university libraries were used as the sample. A structured questionnaire titled: Librarians’ ICT Skills and Effective Services Delivery Questionnaire (LICTESDQ) was used for data collection with 4 point scales. The instrument was given to two experts in the Ignatius Ajuru University, Port-Harcourt to ascertain face and content validity by ensuring that items in the questionnaire matched with the research questions by modifications of some items. A trial testing technique was adopted to ensure reliability of the instrument. Cronbach Alpha was used to analyze the data. The output yielded the Alpha coefficient of 0.96. The data was analysed using simple percentage for demographic data, mean and standard for research questions and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) to test the hypotheses. The result revealed that librarians had web applications skills, library networking skills, cloud technology skills, and there is a significant relationship between web application skills, library networking skills and cloud technology skill, and effective library services delivery. The study recommended that library management should regularly organise training and retraining for librarians on ICT skills particularly web application skills, library networking skills and cloud technology skill