DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS AMONG LIBRARIANS WORKING IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN BENUE STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigates digital literacy skills among librarians working in university libraries in Benue State Nigeria. The study adopted a correlational research design. Three objectives and five research questions guided the study and one null hypotheses was formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study was 76 librarians in the five university libraries in Benue State from which purposive sampling technique was used to select three university libraries in Benue State. Census sampling technique was adopted where all the 66 librarians in the three university libraries were used as the sample. A structured questionnaire titled: Digital Literacy Skills among Librarians in University Libraries Questionnaire (DLSLULQ) was used for data collection with 4-point scales. The instrument was given to two experts from Federal University Lafia to ascertain face and content validity by ensuring that items in the questionnaire matched with the research questions by modifications of some items. A trial testing technique was adopted to ensure reliability of the instrument. Cronbach Alpha was used to analyze the data. The output yielded an Alpha coefficient of 0.96. The data was analyzed using simple percentage for demographic data, mean and standard deviation for research questions while Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test the hypotheses. Findings show that electronic mailing, social networking, use of PDAs, mobile phones and internet surfing are the major DLS amongst librarians. It was also discovered that librarians acquired DLS through colleague's assistance, trial and error, IT programmes and formal education while librarian's level of use of DLS is low amongst other findings. The researcher recommends that management of university libraries should provide training for librarians so as to help update their knowledge in application of digital skills and digital skill competence should be giving more attention during recruitment of librarians amongst others.