THE CHALLENGES OF ACQUISITION OF LIBRARY MATERIALS AND SERVICES TO THE USERS IN LAW LIBRARY IN EKITI STATE UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to look into the challenges of acquiring library materials and providing services to users at Ekiti State University’s law library. The survey research design was used for the study, and the sample size for this study was forty-one(41) participants who are Law library librarians, deans of faculties of law, law lecturers, and other library staff at Ekiti State University. The sources of data collection were both primary and secondary, with questionnaires used as a tool to collect the necessary information. As secondary data, textbooks, journals, articles, law reports, and newspaper publications were gathered, and the study’s limitations were identified. The questionnaires were distributed to 41 participants, with 35 responses. were retrieved and validated, and this served as the foundation for collecting primary data. The mean and standard deviation of the data presented in frequencies and tables were used to analyze it. Lack of funds, absence/poor implementation of collection development policy, lack of capacity building for library staff, lack of technical capabilities in the areas of online databases and electronic resources, high cost of legal materials, and lack of bibliographic control of published legal sources are some of the study’s findings. As a result of the study, the law library should develop an acquisitions policy, also known as a collection development policy, to guide them in the selection and acquisition of legal materials. More, As a result, the government and parent institutions should provide the law library with sufficient funds to enable it to carry out the acquisition process effectively.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
Acquisition of information resources, also known as Collection Development, is a key activity for libraries all over the world. The acquisition section of an academic library serves a variety of functions and serves as the primary link to the rest of the library. The academic library’s acquisition section is one of the critical sections that deals with collection development in a significant way that controls all of the library’s activities. It is referred to as the heart bite of any library, whether electronic or traditional. The notion that information technology innovation (e-library) in the information palace will affect traditional methods of acquisition has not been realized. Libraries continue to acquire and manage massive book collections.
other types of information (Adesanya & Agyen, 2015).
Despite predictions of dwindling print collections and the rise of digital formats, printed resources (books, for example) continue to play an important role in library acquisition ( Carr, 2011). The term acquisition is commonly used to refer to several acquisition processes that are concerned with the techniques of acquiring library materials. The acquisition of library materials is subject to certain constraints that vary from location to location.
According to Prytherch (2011), the process of planning a stock acquisition programme is to build a coherent and reliable collection over a number of years to meet the objectives and services of a library.
Since the strength of a library is derived from acquisition,
The collection of a library is solely determined by the information resources acquired. Acquisition librarians play a critical role in both maintaining a good collection and achieving organizational goals through the acquisition of relevant information resources. When a library acquires good and relevant materials, the benefits to both the library and the users are enormous. The library gains credibility and authority, and the users always find answers to their questions from such a library. Purchase is the most common method of acquiring information resources, but gifts and exchanges, as well as legal deposit, are also used.
Importantly, because the legal researcher usually needs the most recent version of the law as well as confirmation that an approved applicable case has been found.
A status has not been overused by a higher court, nor has it been amended, repealed, or found to be unconstitutional. Legal materials or publications must be selected and acquired, and they must be supplemented and updated on a regular basis using a variety of methods.
Poor communication service, poor management of the library vote, poor quality of locally published books, inarticulate collection development policy, and other issues arise when selecting and acquiring legal materials. Both primary and secondary source materials, such as Acts of Parliament, Gazettes, Reports of Cases, Digest, volumes of Statutes, and so on, must be effectively and efficiently selected and acquired by qualified law librarians (Ali, Owoeye, & Anasi 2010).
- Statement of the problem
The current economic turmoil afflicting the entire world is also affecting academic libraries in developing countries. According to Anunobi (2012), the main challenges affecting material acquisitions in academic libraries are: insufficient funding, economic disruptions, a scarcity of current books, due process, and a lack of current acquisition tools. According to Agyen-Gyasi et al. (2010), special libraries in Nigerian universities face a number of challenges, including rising material costs and limited budgets (that reduces the amount of materials to be acquired). As the law collection grew and expanded, the need to house the materials in a separate apartment adjacent to the faculty of law became increasingly important if the law library was to justify its establishment and fulfill its mission. The primary goal is to meet the academic needs of the law faculty’s students and teachers. Obviously, law is a specialized and highly technical subject, and because of this, it has become the preserve of a professional body of practitioners, distinguishing it from other disciplines in the social science group or other subject categories, thus the need for a balanced and up-to-date law library collection. However, the selection and acquisition of resources for law libraries is fraught with difficulties. As a result, this study seeks to address the challenges of acquiring library materials and providing services to users at Ekiti State University’s law library.
- Objective of the Study
The overarching goal of this research is to investigate the difficulties in acquiring library materials and providing services to users at Ekiti State University’s law library. The study specifically seeks to:
To learn about the legal materials acquired and chosen by the faculty of law library.
Determine who is involved in the selection and acquisition of legal materials at the law faculty library.
To identify the tools used in the law faculty library’s acquisition of legal materials.
To investigate the difficulties encountered in the selection and acquisition of legal materials at the law faculty library.
- Research Question
The following question guides the research:
What kinds of legal materials are chosen and acquired by the law faculty library?
Who is involved in the selection and acquisition of legal materials at the law faculty library?
What tools are used in the selection and acquisition of legal materials at the law faculty library?
What issues have arisen during the selection and acquisition of legal materials?
- Significance of the study
The findings of this study are expected to benefit the management and staff of Nigeria’s national library, the Federal government, researchers, students, authors, lawyers, civil servants, publishers, and library and information science students. The findings of this work, if implemented, may be of great benefit to the management of the Nigerian National Library if the causes of lapses in acquisition and utilization are revealed by correcting errors, particularly in the area of legal deposit. Publishers will be pursued more aggressively for compliance. Authors will be more aware of the advantages of depositing their works with the National Library. If they deposit, their titles will be listed in the Nigerian National Bibliography, which is a good selection tool. This study’s findings will be standard because it will use standard numbers for publications, among other advantages. Obtaining copies for evidence in court will no longer be a problem for lawyers. Only the National Library provides certified true copies of documents, and when they are unavailable, lawyers face difficulties. For students and researchers, there will always be resources readily available for their educational pursuits.
- Scope of the Study
The study’s scope is limited to the challenges of acquiring library materials and providing services to users at Ekiti State University’s law library. The study determined those involved in the selection and acquisition of legal materials at the faculty of law library, as well as the types of legal materials acquired and selected at the faculty of law library. It will identify the tools used in the acquisition of legal materials at the law faculty library and present the issues encountered in the selection and acquisition of legal materials at the law faculty library. The study, however, is limited to Ekiti State University’s Law Library, Law Library Librarian, Dean Faculty of Law, Law Lecturers, and other library staff.
- Limitation of the study
The researchers encountered minor constraints while conducting the study, as with any human endeavor. The significant constraint was the scarcity of literature on the subject due to the nature of the discourse, so the researcher incurred more financial expenses and spent more time sourcing for relevant materials, literature, and data collection, which is why the researcher chose a small sample size. Furthermore, the researcher will conduct this study alongside other academic work. Furthermore, the sample size was limited to Librarians and Law Library Users at Ekiti State University because only a few respondents were chosen to answer the research instrument, so the study’s findings cannot be generalized to other institutions. product. Despite the constraints encountered during the research, all factors were minimized in order to provide the best results and make the research successful.