Utilization Of Electronic Resources By Postgraduate Students In Selected Academic Libraries In Kisii County, Kenya

Abstract

Improvements in Information Technology and associated skills have altered the manner information is offered and disseminated in academic libraries, but the utilization of online information materials amongst postgraduate scholars in academic establishments in Kenya is still low. The research aims to evaluate utilization of electronic materials by postgraduate scholars in selected educational libraries in Kisii County. The study objectives were: to explore the types of electronic resources utilized by post graduate scholars in academic libraries in Kisii County, to assess ways used by post graduate to utilize electronic materials in educational libraries in Kisii County, to explore the obstacles encountered by post graduate scholars when utilizing online resources in educational libraries in Kisii County and to propose approaches to improve utilization of online resources by post graduate scholars in educational libraries in Kisii County. Ranganathan’s theory of five laws of library science as modified by Noruzi formed part of the hypothetical structure of the research. The research adopted a survey strategy commissioning both quantitative and qualitative procedures. The target populace was 672 postgraduate scholars, 52 library staff members and 3 librarians in charge of e-resources from three selected academic libraries in Kisii County. A trial of 150 postgraduate students was sampled via stratified sampling, while 52 library staff were selected via census and 3 system librarians were purposively sampled. Data was collected via Questionnaires and interviews. The findings showed that e-journals and e-research projects are the main types of online resources utilized by post graduate students. Majority of the scholars utilize these online resources on regular basis as a consequence of the off-campus access delivered by the library to all library patrons. The post graduate scholars utilized online resources mainly for study purpose and to keep updated on the subject of interest. The findings also established that the scholars retrieved online resources mainly through their personal effort and majority of them access e-resources from their home or work place due to their busy working schedule. Major challenges that hindered admittance and usage of online resources are dearth of subscriptions in particular fields of study, complications in discovery pertinent information, information surplus and failure to admittance full-text articles entirely. In order to increase access and use of online resources the study recommended that subscription to e-resources should be done for all the programmes offered in the university, increase bandwidth to enhance internet connectivity, purchase more computers to upsurge admittance points to online resources and market e-resources to library patrons using social media and library knowledge ambassadors. The study suggested that funding to academic libraries should be increased to enable them subscribe to more relevant electronic databases, conduct training on online resources at all levels of study to equip students with skills on access and utilization of online resources and that library supervision should put in domicile devices to facilitate utilization of online resources by their users.