Automation and its impact on the job satisfaction among the staff of the Margaret Thatcher Library, Moi University

Abstract

The contextMoi University is one of five state universities in Kenya. It was established in 1984 following the recommendations of the Collin Mackay-led 17-member presidential working party appointed in 1981 to examine the possibility and plans for setting up a second university in Kenya. This was in response to the increasing demand for higher education and the consequent pressure exerted on the University of Nairobi, then the only institution of higher learning. Moi University was a result of the Kenya Government's emphasis on the introduction of new areas of learning that would help meet the high level of manpower requirements of a modern and increasingly technological society. It was expected to focus on problems of rural development in its training, research, extension and consultancy programmes.The first group of 83 students was transferred from the University of Nairobi's Department of Forestry which had, following the working party's recommendations, been transferred to form the nucleus of the first academic programme of Moi University. The department was elevated to a full Faculty of Forestry Resources and Wildlife Management. At the present time, having a combined staff strength of about 1,800, the university has about 7,000 students in various faculties, schools, and institutes in its three campuses: Main, Chepkoilel, and the College of Health Sciences. One of the Moi University's constituent colleges, Maseno University Campus, is in the process of becoming a fully-fledged state university.The main campus, where the Margaret Thatcher Library (MTL) is located, is 35km south east of Eldoret town, about 350km north west of Kenya's capital, Nairobi. It is in a rural setting, on land that was originally a wattle plantation at the southern border of Eldoret Municipality. The location of the university, coupled with prevailing economic conditions, presents a major challenge to the accessibility of information technology training and other courses found in Kenya's urban centres such as Eldoret and Nairobi.