Availability and Utilization of Library Portal Services for Research in University Libraries in Nigeria

1. Introduction

The main purpose of establishing university libraries is to provide information resources that will go a long way in supporting teaching, learning and research in their parent institutions. The library is widely known as a repository of knowledge that serves and empowers several clients at the same time. The goal of a library is to satisfy the users’ needs by providing more value-added services and better information services which can enhance the image of the library. This is why Nwazuoke (2000) in his observation sees that man has recorded a huge success in the 21^st century which is attributed to man’s enhanced ability to process and manage information with the ultimate goal of decision making. This has been facilitated by the use of information communication technology which helps in harnessing and disseminating information through many access points and formats. The application of ICT has caused a significant change in libraries; automated cataloging, circulation, information retrieval electronic document delivery, and CD-ROM databases. Upkebor (2011) stressed that electronic resources have been used to provide accurate and timely information especially for lecturers and students who depend greatly on electronic resources to boost teaching, research and collaborate with counterparts around the world for intellectual growth. The advent of the internet, digitization, and the ability to access library and research materials from remote locations created dramatic changes by the end of the twentieth century. There have been fast and personal significant changes in librarianship, where digital and electronic libraries complement, and in some cases replace, traditional libraries. The portal is not left out as the world contains selective links providing authoritative, in-depth information about the nations and other areas of the world. They are arranged by country or area with the links for each sorted into a wide range of broad categories. These links were selected by Area specialists and other library staff using library of congress selection criteria. The world is becoming increasingly globalized, and the internet has assumed a powerful and effective role in global information dissemination. Web portals offer a means of global information conveyance and this is why libraries can disseminate information through their web portals, which will be open to millions of readers across the globe. Portals were first introduced in the business sector in the early 1990s owing to the enormous growth of web documents. Locating relevant web files by conventional means was quite difficult. To solve this problem, search engines were created. But they too were found not to be efficient in retrieving the desired documents from the huge amount of web resources. This led to the introduction of the new technology known as a web portal for channeling or categorization of web documents into preconfigured groups. The web portal, considered as an earlier stage of a portal, was first adopted by libraries. In 1998 library portal was introduced at the North Carolina State University, Libraries (Morgan & Reade, 2000).

When planning a portal, it is important to keep certain principles in mind. It has to be designed from a customer perspective – it needs to be simple to use, dependable and predictable. It should be able to demonstrate value – or deliver results – and make the customer more self-reliant. It is important to involve all stakeholders in portal planning and utilization and to adhere to principles and tools that allow for all units to leverage unifying technologies. For example, in the case of an academic portal, this means a single campus portal. An enterprise portal requires a single identity and authentication system, requires all components to communicate and should have capabilities that allow students, faculty and staff to complete transactions in real time. The goal of an enterprise portal is to create a framework for adverse user groups and stakeholders to work together. It has to be customer-driven, capable of creating one-stop services and by design, of building a community of interest for the long term. In the case of a university, for example, it might encourage life-long learning. For utilization, designers need to listen to the voice of the customer and develop the ability or the vision to imagine the outcomes of a portal. In discussing and planning any portal framework. It is important to come to a common understanding of what portal means. There are various definitions depending on perspective, mission or function. McCartney and Jones (2002) defined portals as whatever the institution wants them to be – a place that draws people to it because of what it offers and what is enabled. A portal is a that delivers web resources to end-users based on the identification and authentication system in place. The more they know about their customers, the better they can plan and the more useful the portal will be. A portal should have the capability to gradually learn and change based on how it is used by individuals. A portal changes as the status and the activity in its change. It learns as it goes. True portals are bi-directional environments that enable real-time transactions, such as information, financial services or changeable scheduling.

Many libraries are considering web portals as a way to improve their library services. In general, a web portal can be defined as “An organized and integrated set of links to specific content pages, usually based around a topic” (O’Leary, 2004). In the library context, a portal is usually utilized as a way to provide integrated access to a library’s services and collections. While many libraries offer access to services and content via their websites, the portal is seen as a way to make library services more attractive and user-centric. Initiative as well as competence to conduct viable academic research for the purpose of solving any kind of social and economic national problems may be inhibited as a result of failure to use library information resources. Okiy (2006) and Iyoro (2004). said that high availability of resources encouraged the use of library services. They further stated that there is a significant relationship between portal and use of library services. The incursion of the electronic resources into library services in the educational sector provides the possibilities to solve most teaching, learning, research and overall information creation, organization, dissemination, preservation and conservation problems even more rapidly and accurately than hitherto conceived. According to Nwachukwu and Asom (2015) this has eventually made the computer and other electronic systems the doyen of research as it continues to extract greater acceptance.

Electronic resources have the ability to offer entrée to contemporary information as these are updated frequently to handle information services. It includes services such as: the online databases, online reference services, digital repository, library web portals, selective dissemination, the use of Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), online feed (RSS feed), online tutoring and such like (Nuhu, 2014).

Without functional portal services, library users may find it difficult to access vital and needed information for their research and scholarship. This may impact negatively on their academic work. The provision of access to information resources such as databases, electronic journal (e-journal), electronic book (e-book), e-alerting services, e-special collections, CD-ROM, online reference tools through the library portals helps improve the quality of teaching and research (Nnadozie, Aniebo, & Chukwueke, 2017).

Despite the importance of library portal services to academic library services and the danger of poor or lack of portal services, it has been observed that many university libraries in Nigeria do not have efficient portal services. It has also been observed that many university libraries are yet to introduce or improve on their library portal services. Despite the importance of library portal services in university libraries and the danger of non-implementation of university library portal services, no study seems to have been carried out to determine the implementation of university library services especially in the two libraries under study. The use of university libraries depends on the availability of the users’ desired information resources library portal. In the light of the above, this study intends to determine the extent of implementation of library portal services in Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Nnamdi Azikiwe University Library, Awka. Therefore, the problem of the study put in question form is what is the extent of implementation of library portal services in the two university libraries.

2. Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study:

(a) What are the portal services available in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka Library and University of Nigeria Nsukka libraries?

(b) What is the extent of utilization of library portal services by users from different disciplines in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka and University of Nigeria Nsukka libraries?

3. Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were formulated and tested at .05 level of significance.

• ∙ Ho1: There is no significant difference in the mean responses of librarians of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Library Awka, Anambra State and University of Nigeria Nsukka Library, Enugu State on the availability of library portal services.
• ∙ Ho2: There is no significant difference in the mean responses of librarians of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Library Awka, Anambra State and University of Nigeria Nsukka Library, Enugu State on the extent of utilization of library portal services.

4. Literature Review

For Looney and Lyman (2000) portals, even at the most basic level, can help combat ‘Infoglut’ and prevent users feeling ‘Lost on the Web’. The authors refer to portals as a ‘Home on the Web’ a place to return to make sense of necessary information. For Katz (2002) building relationships between institutional constituent groups is a primary task of institutional portals. The new, wonderful and challenging aspect of web management posed by portals is the idea of creating and managing information systems whose primary purpose is to sustain positive relationships between an institution’s stakeholders and the institution. Moreover, in the new electronic environment, librarians perform triple fundamental roles of information access provision, research assistance and collaborative system designing. A number of portal developments are viewed in terms of customer service development, for example, the University of Delaware indicates that the portal provides a tool for managing relationships with “Customers”. Jacobsen (2000) refer to the portal as providing easier access for Villanova, customers. Whilst the term ‘customer’ has connotations of the commercialization of education the ‘customer’ in these scenarios is not the student paying for the courses, though they form an important stakeholder group, but the teaching staff, researchers and parents and employers who are the recipients of institutional information and users of institutional services and resources.

Looney and Lyman (2000) highlight the potential of institutional portals to both develop and maintain institutional communities: “we believe that the value of a portal to a campus is that it can be used to engage constituent groups, empower them with access to information resources and communication tools, and ultimately retain them by providing a more encompassing sense of membership in an academic community”. The authors indicate that many of the key questions when planning portals are concerned with building communities beyond the campus walls fostering application, acceptance and retention rates and increasing the quality of alumni and parent relationships. McCredie (2002) has indicated that fostering institutional community beyond the campus and meeting customer requirements has remained central to developments at the University of California Berkeley. Bringula, Sarmiento, and Basa (2017) in a more recent study further affirmed that educational web portals serve as gateways to information and services for learning and teaching.

In the UK the commitment to customer service shaped the development of the London School of Economics’ ‘LSE for you’ Cobb, Riley, and Earley (2002) note the incongruity between the high numbers of overseas students applying to the school and the standard UK office hours and public holidays observed by the institution. In order to foster a sense of identification with the institution through the delivery of effective services to applicants the institution developed a portal to provide 24/7 access to information and services. Eisler (2001) noted that portals offer the prospect of helping higher education find new ways to connect with students, faculty, alumni and the community ⋯ many colleges strongly feel the need to create new avenues for building community among their people. The creation and maintenance of an institutional community ware central to the development of the g web at George Washington University, where the institution was keen to replicate and develop the university’s sense of community in an online environment. The university noted, with concern, students using external sites – such as Yahoo and AOL – for information and communication and as a result, much of the portal effort has centered on getting users to return to institutional sites and services (Olsen, 2002). Web portal has the following advantages:

• ∙ Provide data from multiple sources and in multiple formats that can be organized into a single menu.
• ∙ Provide web-based services such as chat rooms, searches, free password – protected email, FTP, bulletin boards, live-moderated events, forums, news, entertainment, and retail services.
• ∙ Incorporate triggers that alert users or run an application when a specific event takes place.
• ∙ Allow users to conduct business transactions.

Looking at previous related studies, Englert (2003) reflected on the growing importance of portals in institutions around the world using senior representatives of institutions in the UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Singapore and Australia and reveals that Whilst 31 of the 47 institutions surveyed were not currently deploying a portal, three quarters felt that they were either important or very important and 96% of the respondents were planning, developing or currently utilizing an institutional portal.

In a closer context, Ugah (2008) investigated the portal and the use of library services at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike to examine the relationship of (portal) availability and accessibility of information sources with the use of library services in the university library. Findings in the study revealed that more than 80% of the respondents agreed that their use of the library services depends on the availability of library portal information sources and slightly fewer than that found availability to be an influence on their use. The use of library services depends on the availability of information resources and library portal services and vice versa.

5. Research Methods

A researchers’ designed/developed (structured) questionnaire was used to elicit necessary data on utilization of library portal services in Festus Aghagbo Nwako library Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) and University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) library from the librarians. These comprised of the University Librarians – heads of the libraries (UL), the professional librarians (PL) and system analysts (SA) of the two libraries - a total of 70 respondents; thirty six (36) were staff of university of Nigeria (UNN) library and thirty four (34) were staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) library. The questionnaire was divided into two parts, part one and part two. Part one elicited the personal data of the respondents while part two contains five sections which addressed the research questions. The instrument was face validated by two experts in library and Information Science Department and one in Measurement and Evaluation to determine the suitability of language, adequacy and relevance of the items in addressing the research questions.

For the purpose of obtaining the internal consistency and reliability of the instrument, Cronbach Alpha reliability method was used and the overall reliability index for the instrument was 0.77. The analyses of the data were carried out after scoring the collected raw data. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the three research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.

6. Results

Analysis of data and presentation of results were carried out in the order of the research questions raised and hypotheses postulated for the study. While the analysis was done using mean and standard deviation, the decision is based on real limits of numbers for clarity thus:

Mean score of up to 1.00 – 1.49 = Very low extent/strongly disagree

1.50 – 2.49 = Low extent/disagree

2.50 – 3.49 = High extent/agree

3.50 – 4.00 = Very high extent/Strongly agree

The null hypotheses were tested in this section. The t-test statistic was used for analyzing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.

Research Question 1: What are the library portal services available in the libraries?

The data presented in Table 1 revealed that the identified portal services are available in the libraries. These items are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 with mean scores of 2.83, 3.10, 2.96, 3.11, 3.33, 3.23, 2.90, 3.16, 3.54, 3.56 and 3.49 respectively. These disciplines covered by the portal services included Agriculture, Health sciences, Engineering, Biological sciences amongst others. However, they strongly agreed to the availability of information about the institution and federal government programmes (Items 9 & 10). The values of standard deviation ranged from 0.44 to 0.99 which indicated that the respondents were not too far from the mean and from the opinion of one another in their valid. The grand mean of 3.20 also indicated that the aforementioned items are available in the library portal services.

Table 1.

Mean Ratings on the Library Portal Services available in the Libraries

Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference in the mean responses of librarians in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Library Awka and University of Nigerian Nsukka Library on the availability of library portal services.

Results in Table 2 revealed that the calculated t-value (1.21) is less than the critical t-value (1.96) at 68 degree of freedom and at 0.05 level of significance. The results indicated that librarians in UNIZIK and those in UNN had uniform opinions on the availability of university of university library portal services on research. The implication, therefore, is that the null hypothesis is not rejected since the calculated t-value (1.21) is less than the critical t-value of 1.96.

Table 2.

The t-test Analysis of Mean Responses of UNIZIK and UNN Librarians on the availability of University Library Portal Services for Research

Research Question 2: What is the extent of utilization of library portal services in the libraries under study?

Results from Table 3 indicated that library portal services were utilized to a high extent in five areas – Health Science, Engineering, Information about the Institution, federal government programmes and career development. The items are numbered mean values of 2.74, 2.63, 2.73, 2.50 and 2.51 respectively. The values of their standard deviation ranged from 0.79 to 1.02. On the other hand, results further indicated that library portal services were utilized to a low extent in areas such as Biological Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Environmental Sciences with mean scores ranging from 2.23 to 2.46 and standard deviation from 0.78 to 1.02. The values of standard deviation were also homogenous. The grand mean of 2.46 indicated that library portal services were utilized to a low extent in the Nnamdi Azikiwe and University of Nigeria libraries.

Table 3.

Mean Ratings of the Respondents on the Extent of Utilization of Library Portal Services by Users from different Disciplines in the Libraries under Study

Hypothesis 2: There is no significant difference in the mean responses of librarians of the UNIZIK and those in UNN on the extent of utilization of library portal services.

Data presented in Table 4 revealed that the calculated t-value of 1.05 is less than the critical t-value of 1.96. This implied that librarians in UNIZIK those in UNN did not differ significantly in their opinions on the extent of utilization of university library portal services. The null hypothesis of no significant difference was not rejected since the calculated t-value is loss than the critical t-value at 68 degree of freedom and at 0.05 level of significance.

Table 4.

The t-test result of comparison between the opinions of librarians in UNIZIK and those in UNN on the extent of utilization of library portal services

7. Discussion of findings

Findings on portal Services available in the Library showed that the areas of availability of library portal services in Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, U.N.N. includes Agriculture, Health Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences and Information about Institution, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Natural Sciences. In Festus Aghagbo Nwako Library, Awka, the areas of portal library services include Career Development, Federal Government Programmes, Environmental Science, Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Engineering, and Health Sciences. This finding is in line with that of Englert (2003), Bringula, Rex, and Sarmiento (2017) who observed the growing importance of portals in various disciplines in various institutions around the world. Englert’s research in those days was carried out with senior representatives of institutions in the UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Singapore and Australia and reveals that whilst 31 of the 47 institutions surveyed were not currently deploying a portal, three-quarters felt that they were either important or very important and 96% of the respondents were planning, developing or currently implementing an institutional portal. Bringula, Rex, and Sarmiento (2017)’s recent research affirmed that most institutions have adopted portal services. It is note-worthy that no participants felt that this issue was unimportant. The digital age has brought about a completely different way of providing library services resulting to the development of new services. Library portal services have been found to be an important development in this present digital age.

Findings on extent of utilization of portal services available in the libraries indicated that portal services are utilized to a low extent in the university libraries. This finding is in consonance with Chibunna et al. (2012) who asserted that library resources in most schools in Nigeria appear to be inaccessible and under-utilized. Utilization of library information resources is a key factor in the provision of quality services in different types of libraries. Bhatt (2013) also asserted that successful library services depend mainly on satisfaction level of its users with the relevant library information resources, user centric library services and library staff supportive attitude. In my own view, any technological organized library is essential for educational development.

Librarians in the libraries did not significantly differ in their opinions on the availability of library portal services and on the extent of utilization of library portal services in the libraries under study.

8. Conclusion

The increasing number of higher institutions and poor funding by the concerned government have implications for research and development, as research depends on having access to the current and relevant literatures and information resources. Provisions should be made by the universities as well as library management to provide and update required portal services in addition to creating enabling environment for enhanced access and utilization of these services. The governments must make a deliberate effort to provide funds for policy implementation, provide necessary technology training for librarians and users, and develop general information infrastructure to provide and support an enabling ICT environment for utilization of university library portals. Since university library portals are available for use by users from different disciplines, the inadequate level of utilization could be enhanced by enriching and updating the portals with trending information resources and as such attract higher level of utilization. To achieve this, the government and governing bodies/management of the university libraries should readdress funding of the libraries as a whole and portal related projects in particular.

Acknowledgments

The researchers wish to acknowledge the heads of the libraries and the librarians in the libraries used for the study. They also appreciate the efforts of the research assistants that assisted in data collection, the statistician that guided them in data analysis and their senior colleagues in their places of work for giving them the time to complete the research logistics.

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