Acquisition and Deployment of Technology in the Library in the Library Environment
Chapter One
Objectives of the study
The two main objectives of this study were to investigate access to and use of e-resources in the academic school library.
CHAPTER TWO
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Historical background toe-resources
According toMiller (2000),twenty years ago, common use of the Internet and such formats as CD-ROMs were still in their infancy stage; many academic libraries still did not have integrated library systems, though most were using every means they had to acquire them. Academiclibrarieshaverespondedtomajorchangesinthenatureoftheircollectionsanduser demands while materials budgets have provided less purchasing power than in the previous decades. Partly due to general economic factors (inflation, weak local currencies, increased publishing costs) and partly due to other demands on universities or colleges (budgets, technology, student demographics, staff benefits and so on) library material budgets have tended to diminish, if not in actual currencies, certainly in what could be purchased and in the percentage of needed materials acquired. The situation was complicated as publishing, fed by economic pressures, expanded disciplines. Added to this, pricing for scholarly journals, the backbone of any academic collection, increased annually by percentages in double digits with devastating effects on print collections. Since the cost of printed serials have continued to escalate beyond the general economy; electronic reference tools offered an advantage over print,assuchlibrariesareincreasinglyspendingforcurrentonlineaccessoverthepurchaseof printmaterials.Thefocusnowisonmaximisingonlineaccessfrommultipleremotelocations.
While material costs annually increased at percentages in the double digits, the new economics pushed librarians’ attention to e-resources and document delivery. Various forms of resource sharing and ILL have come into existence to support research and instruction because of the increasingly high cost of serials. Journal prices have created a crisis because few budgets can keep pace with the inflated costs and changing needs. Therefore, reallocation of material budget shasnow become anissue(Miller,2000).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Library consortiain SA are characterised by different organisational and governance structures depending on the governing boards and consortia objectives in various regions. In each case, the legal entity is the higher education consortium and the library consortium is a committee of the institutional parent body. The library consortia have no legal status. Each consortium strives to meet the needs of its region with particular focus on the academics, students, and researchers. Thomas and Fourie (2006:3) identified common objectives of each consortium and they include the following:
Population of the study
According to Fraenkel, Wallen and Hyun (2012: 92), population is “a larger group of people, objects, or institutions that interest the researcher and from which the sample to be studied is drawn and findings of the study are generalised”. The population of the study was identified from the official website of the Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL, 2014). Academic libraries thatwere used in this study were from the list of the nine(9)institutions that constitute SCHOOL. Subject librarians, systems librarians, and acquisition librarians were found to be personnel who are dealing with or connected with e-resources acquisition, access and use in general, and were found to be e-resources supervisors who were relevant respondents, and the University Librarian and Library Directors were the overseer of the management of academic libraries. The units of analysis of the study was comprised of nine(9)academic libraries within SCHOOL which included:
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION
There are two main forms of research data, such as number and words (Blaikie 2010: 161). Data analysis is “the process of making sense out of data” (Merriam 2009: 175). According to Gorman and Clayton (2005: 206) argued that “data analysis is the process of bringing order, structure and meaning to the mass of collected data”. Content analysis in qualitative enquiries classifiestextualmaterialbyreducingittomorerelevant,andmanageablebitsofdata(Gorman and Clayton 2005: 213-214). According to Leedy and Ormrod (2005: 142), content analysisis considered a detailed and systematic description of the manifest content of communication to identifypatternsorthemes.Forqualitativedata,itwasanalysedbysortingandorganisedusing thematic content analysis. Before data was analysed, it had to be cleaned in order to check its consistency and reliability, as well as for completeness. Recorded data were evaluated, and subjected to themes by coding and developing of data (Creswell, 2008).
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary of findings and conclusions
The section summarises the findings of the study that relate to access to and use of e-resources in academic libraries of the SCHOOL. The order or sequence of the findings follow the order of the previous discussion that followed the research questions. The primary objective of this research was to investigate access to and use of electronic information resources in the academiclibrariesoftheSCHOOL.Theaimwastoprovideaccessandusageanalysisbasedon academic libraries e-resources. The strength of the study lies in the fact that access and usage analysis was complemented by in-depth interviews with a University Librarian, Library Directors, a PVC, Directors and Rectors of the institutions. This provided the necessary contextualinformationtoinformtheinterpretationofthedata,aswellasshowingviewsonthe topicofaccessanduseofe-resources.Thestudyprovidedaclearindicationthattheacademic school library were clearly moving towards an electronic environment. The study providedanoverviewofthecurrente-resourcesavailableintheacademiclibraries,thecurrent benefits, strategies and challenges faced by libraries, content providers, publishers and other stakeholders in the electronic information supply chain, and offers a set of recommendations to best support access to and use of e-resources in the academiclibraries.
Access to and use of e-resources
The first research question of the study sought to investigate how e-resources were accessed by first identifying what type of e-resources were available in their libraries. The findings showed that the e-resources available were e-mail, e-journals, search engines, full-text databases, websites, CD-ROMs, reference databases and IRs. The study found that awareness of available e-resources in the academic libraries was through library orientations, colleagues and lecturers. Awareness through subject librarians, library websites, library guides and displays was low in the academic libraries.
The results showed that e-resources which were mostly accessed included e-mail, search engines,websitesandOPAC,whilee-journals,full-textdatabases,IRsandreferencedatabases were least accessed. Evaluation criteria of e-resources for ongoing subscriptions includeduser community demand, online statistics provided by the publisher and content of subject matter. The findings showed that online statistics and coverage were the least means of evaluating ongoing subscriptions. E-resources in academic libraries were found to be mainly used for communication, assignments to support teaching and learning activities, and for professional research works. Other uses were for administrative purposes and for recreation. The findings revealed that frequency and level of use of e-resources in the academic libraries was very low. The study further revealed that there were conditions attached to use of e-resourcesinacademic libraries. Conditions required that users be registered students or staff members in their institutions, access required user login and passwords, users were not allowed to access pornographic sites and some e-resources could only be accessedon-campus.
Systems in place to facilitate access to and use ofe-resources
The secondresearchquestionofthestudyinvestigatedwhichsystemswereinplacetofacilitate access and use in the academic libraries. The findings showed that the most commonly used librarysoftwaresystemwasCDS-ISIS.OthersoftwaresystemswereWEBLISand ITS,while INNOPAC was the least used software system. The results revealed that there were computer servershousedinsomeacademiclibraries,while otheracademiclibrariesdidnothaveservers housed in their libraries. The results revealed that all academic libraries had internet connectivity. A few libraries were not sure if there was a server housed in their libraries. The findings established that bandwidth strength in most academic libraries was good, while in other libraries it was poor. A very good bandwidth strength was only found in one academic library. Other facilities to enhance access to and use of e-resources were Wi-Fi connectivity and hotspots, computer LANs or internetcafés.
Effectiveness of SCHOOL in influencing access to and use of e-resources
The third research question of the study investigated the effectiveness of SCHOOL in influencing access to and use of e-resources in the academic libraries, such as guidelines and policies. The study found that there were no guidelines in a majority of the academiclibraries. Nocollectiondevelopmentpolicyfore-resourcesexistedinthelibraries,apolicywasinplace formonographs.ThestudyrevealedthatSCHOOLdidnotofferskillsdevelopmenttoamajority of the academic libraries, while a few received such skills. The findings showed that activities that lead to skills development in some libraries included in-service training through workshops, seminars and refresher courses.
Recommendations
The recommendations presented are based on the discussions and findings of each of the research questions. The recommendations are made in the following areas: access to e- resources and use, systems to enhance access to and use of e-resources, effectiveness of SCHOOLinfacilitatingaccesstoanduseofe-resources,challengeslibrariesfaceinfacilitating access to and use of e-resources, and strategies to enhance access to and use ofe-resources.
Access to and use of e-resources
Though most of the e-resources accessed were through search engines, websites and in the academic libraries, it is recommended that there should be an assessment by libraries to ascertain the low usage of other e-resources such as e-journals, full-text databases, reference databases and IRs. The academic school library need to equip users with strategic information skills for retrieving information from e-resources, to facilitate and encourage its users to make an effort to access and use the e-resources, thereby promoting intention to use theresources.ItisrecommendedthattheacademiclibrariesofSCHOOLneedtomonitorusage statistics of e-resources to help them compile usage statistics and to provide the necessary information to establish the usefulness of the e-resources. It is recommended that academic librariansassistuserstoidentifyandevaluateinformationessentialtodecision-making,andto perceive usefulness of the resources. The academic school library need to make the academic community aware of the existence of e-resources, especially e-journals which have shownlowusage,whichareuptodateresearchresources.Currentawarenesscampaignsarea must for every academic library, because they can facilitate awareness amongst students, lecturersandresearchers.Thiswouldinfluencetheirintentiontousetheresourcesandimprove the performance expectancy. It is therefore recommended that the academic school libraryneedtointensifytraining,awarenessprogrammesandeducationontheaccessibility, availability and usage of library’se-resources.
Systems in place to facilitate access to and use of e-resources
The internet is a vital e-resource that must be accessible to all academic library communities. Institutions need to devise means of harnessing ICTs that should be used for the greater good of the academic community. Institutions should partner with private stakeholders to provide academic libraries with high speed internet access and to fast track the roll-out of improved broadband. It is recommended that SCHOOL negotiate on behalf of its members with local internet service providers such as Telecom Nigeria, to purchase additional internet access bandwidth for higher educational academic libraries. It is recommended that SCHOOL strive towards sourcing donor funding to procure a common integrated library software system for a comprehensive collection of resources in the academic libraries. This could occur through
equipment supply policies or dedicated funding for both equipment and ICTs positions or support in funding proposals. Studies should be conducted more frequently to find out the changesinaccessandusepatternsasthetechnologyisbecomingmoreandmoresophisticated on a daily basis. The academic school library need to improve the speed of internet connectivity for ease of accessibility and usage of e-resources. Wi-Fi connectivity needs to be intensifiedandhotspotsneedtobeset-upinvariousplacesaroundcampusestoenable24hour access to and use of e-resources. Systems in place such as fast broadband, Wi-Fi connectivity andup-to-dateICTinfrastructureactasfacilitatingconditionsforuse,therebyharnessingeffort expectancy and intention to access and use thee-resources.
Effectiveness of SCHOOL in influencing access to and use of e-resources
The use of e-resources provided through various consortia has been found to be good enough. SCHOOL is responsible for ensuring the continued development of an online information environment, building on existing partnerships and forging new ones to contribute to a vision of a single integrated information environment. In order for SCHOOL to be effective in influencing access to and use of e-resources, it is recommended that a common electronic collection development policy, guidelines and procedures for budget allocation, needs assessment, selection, collection maintenance, evaluation and resource sharing be formulated and be implemented to enhance the efficient management of e-resource collections in the libraries.Thiscanbeachievedbyprovidingselectionprocedures,requirements,standardsand specifications in terms of ICT infrastructure and equipment and human resource recruitment. In order to optimise the use of e-resources, it is recommended that SCHOOL organise training sessionstofamiliarisetheusercommunitywiththefeatures,content,coverageoftheresources and how to remotely access them. The academic school library are recommended to engage in professional development activities in a variety of formats including workshops, discussion groups and educational tours and trips in the academic libraries. It isrecommended the SCHOOL offer its members academic libraries, training in skills development on current awareness, importance of usage statistics, and specialised technological skills such as web- basedadministrativetoolsande-resourcesinformationretrievalskillstobeabletoimpartsuch skills to the academic community. Policies and guidelines in place and skills acquired by the academic libraries will be the driving forces of facilitating conditions, social influence and intention to access and usee-resources.
The coalition of South African Library Consortium (COSALC) observed that currently higher education institutions and library consortia are individually approached by vendors and publishers of information. This leads to unnecessary duplication, and is extremely expensive for individual institutions, widens the gap between the information rich and information poor, and does not contribute to the goal of information resource sharing and equitable access to information for all academic institutions. The role of SCHOOL, is to facilitate joint purchasing of e-resources at reduced cost, to bargain for reduced rates to subscriptions for consortium libraries. Therefore, for SCHOOL to facilitate access to and use of electronic information, it must emulate COSALC by establishing an initiative, such as the South African Site Licensing Initiative (SASLI), managed as a project to promote the sharing of information resources and toachieveeconomiesofscaleinSA.Itsroleistoestablishneeds,negotiatelicensesandprices, co-ordinate access, delivery and training, and other issues related to the cost effective use of electronic information.
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