Ownership, gender, and experience as correlates of policy implementation in the management of university libraries in the South-South, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined ownership, gender and experience as correlates of policy implementation in the management of Universities Libraries in South-South, Nigeria. The correlational survey design was adopted for the study. Three (3)research questions and three (3)hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study was 1,465 which comprised 12university librarians from the 12 State and Federal Universities in South-South, 263 other professional librarians and 1,200 year 3 students who are regular libraryusers in the universities. The sample for the study was 385 respondents which consisted of 12 university librarians from the twelve universities, 263 other professional librarians and 120 years 3 students. The convenience sampling technique was used to select 10 year 3 students each from the 12 universities. Three instruments were used for datathe collection namely:questionnaire,interview, and focus group discussion. The overall internal consistency reliability index of the questionnaire obtained through Cronbach’s alpha estimate was 0.95. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviations for the research questions. The null hypotheses were tested using multiple regressionsand associated t-test. The findings showedthat in the management of university libraries in South-South Nigeria, library policies on main duties and responsibilities, user-oriented library concepts, schedule of duties, were highly implemented. On account of these findings, it was recommended among others that: The National Universities Commission (NUC) should monitor the implementation of the policy statements. This is to ensure that libraries irrespective of ownership, gender and experience of the librarians, are encouraged and supported to implement the policy statements to a very high extent.