International Journal of Information Science and Management

Vol 7, No 1, ISSN 1726-8125, 2009

Attitudinal Correlates of Some Selected Nigerian Librarians towards the Use of ICT

T. Adeyinka , Department of Library Information Studies University of Botswana, email: tellayinkaedu@yahoo.com

Abstract

The explosion of information communication technology (ICT) since the beginning of the 20^th century has been rendering manual-based library system in academic, research, special and public libraries less relevant. This is because using and implementing information communication technology in the library depend largely on the librarian attitude toward the current digital age. This study examined the attitudinal correlates of some selected Nigerian Librarian towards the use and application of ICT in their various libraries. A total of 41 librarians from all the four censured automated libraries in Oyo state of Nigeria formed the study’s population. Two research questions were developed to guide the study. The results indicate that all the four out of the five variables age, gender, educational qualifications and prior knowledge of ICT significantly correlate with librarian attitude towards ICT; while the other variable ICT anxiety correlate negatively with the librarian attitude towards ICT. Findings further show that all the 5 variables significantly predict librarian’s attitude towards ICT with prior ICT experience showing the greatest predictive effect. Based on these findings, it is recommended that libraries in the developing countries should consider training those librarians who do not have knowledge of ICT in order to remove the fear and anxiety hindering them from developing good attitude towards the use of ICT in their libraries.

Keywords : Attitude, Use of ICT, Digital Age, Librarians, Developing Countries, Nigeria.