INFORMATION SHARING AND USE AS DETERMINANTS OF WORK PERFORMANCE OF CATALOGUING PERSONNEL IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN SOUTH-WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

Academics rely on current and timely information in pursuit of their teaching and research activities. Prompt processing of Library information resources as anchored by cataloguers can easily afford them the opportunity to obtain relevant information timely and effortlessly. Cataloguers therefore are bibliographic services professionals involve in providing access to information resources of any given library in order to satisfy the varied information needs of the users. It is expedient therefore, to investigate how information sharing and information use could determine the cataloguing personnel work performance in academic libraries in South-West, Nigeria. The research design adopted for this study was survey methods. The total population of the study consisted of 263 cataloguing personnel in academic libraries in South-West, Nigeria. The total enumeration technique was used to cover all the 263 cataloguing personnel in 32 Universities, 17 Polytechnics and 11 Colleges of Education. The data collection instrument used was a validated questionnaire with reliability coefficients of 0.74 for Information Sharing (IS), 0.89 for Information Use (IU) and 0.83 for Work Performance (WP). A total of 263 copies of the questionnaire were administered on the Cataloguing personnel with a response rate of 98%. Data were analyzed using descriptive mean, standard deviations and inferential simple correlation, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and multiple regression statistics. The result showed that appreciable information sharing practice, X=2.9.08, SD 4.13 high information use X=44.48, SD 5.57, existed among the Cataloguing personnel. The study concluded by establishing that information sharing, information use, are critical ingredients for improving work performance of Cataloguing personnel. Therefore, if academic libraries must remain relevant in the scheme of information provision, necessary machineries such as adequate working tools and skillful personnel must be put in place to facilitate prompt and efficient service delivery.