Abuse of Information Materials in Academic Libraries by Students of Tertiary Institutions in Ekiti-State, Nigeria.

The paper examines the abuse of information materials in academic libraries by students of tertiary institutions in Ekiti-State, Nigeria. The study is descriptive design and the population of the study is 140. Quota sampling technique was employed and 100 copies of questionnaire were distributed to the respondents, while 80 copies were returned giving 80% return rate. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the mostly abuse information materials are textbooks (92%), projects/theses/dissertations (60%), and newspapers (58.75%). Some students abuse information materials because they are too lazy, selfish and that high demand of a particular book by the students sometime influence them in abusing library materials. The most common ways of abusing library materials by student is by tearing of pages (92.10%), folding of pages (86.66%), and writing on pages of information materials (82.50%). It was suggested that abuser should be subjected to heavy and well defined penalties, while closed circuit television should be installed in libraries to minimize these occurrences, as well as providing effective photocopying facilities which can be easily used when needed by library users. In addition to suggestions made, it was recommended that multiple copies of books should be placed in circulation so as to meet the high demands of library user, while in-service training should be organized once in a while to non-professionals librarians, among others