Faculty Members Awareness and Use of Academic Electronic Databases in Two Nigerian Specialised University Libraries

The study examined faculty awareness and use of academic databases in two Nigerian specialised universities. Four research questions guided the study. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population comprises 276 faculty members who are registered with both Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE) and Nigerian Maritime University (NMU) Libraries. The entire population was selected in the research using a total enumeration sampling technique. Structured questionnaire were used to elicit data from the respondents following the necessary ethical considerations. A total of 276 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to the respondents and 248 copies were returned resulting in a 90% response rate. The data elicited were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that the extent of awareness of academic databases by the faculty members in the two specialised universities was high. The findings indicated that the purpose of the use of academic databases by the faculty members included research purposes, meeting teaching requirements, tracking citation metrics and impact factors of relevant academic articles, journals, and books, and lesson note preparation, among others. The findings revealed that the extent of the use of academic databases by faculty members examined was low. The challenges militating against the use of academic databases as indicated in the study findings include epileptic power supply and poor internet connectivity/ low bandwidth, poor management support, inadequate subscribed databases, and lack of time and high workload, among others. The researchers recommended that university and library management should put efforts towards sustaining the awareness of their faculty members on the availability of academic databases and university management should provide the needed support by ensuring alternative power sources, subscribed academic databases and a swift internet is made available to enhance academic database use by faculty members.

Faculty members; Awareness; Electronic; Databases

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