AVAILABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY OF INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION OF THE RESOURCES IN AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FUAA, NIGERIA

The study was conducted to analyze the Availability and Accessibility of Information Resources for Effective Utilization of the Resources in Agriculture University Library by students of Federal University Agriculture Abeokuta. Three research objectives guided the study. 306 copies of questionnaire were administered to the respondents in the university and in response only 217 were received from the student’s community. Simply a stratified random sampling technique was employed for the study due to the largeness of the population. In the data analysis, frequency counts, simple percentages, and charts were used for the statistical analysis. The findings revealed that the availability of information resources such as newspapers, journals, text and reference books, theses and dissertations, E-journals, E-News papers, E-Books and CD-ROMs; It also indicated that the level of usage of information resources for research among students is relatively fair and textbook, journals, E-Newspapers and E-theses/dissertations are the most used information resource by the students. The findings show that many other primary and secondary information resources and as for as digital sources and the internet facilities concerned, connection speed is challenging reflects in the use of electronic information resources in the library. The non-availability and accessibility of digital and some printed information resources affects the student’s creativity, own assignments and projects and further leads to copying and plagiarism. The research findings draw the attention of the Federal University of Agriculture Library (FUAA) Ogun State in collection developments in terms of both the print and digital information resources and also recommends to increase the speed of internet and free downloading and printing the digital contents. The study also advocates the library staff members to provide information guidance and training services to the students in utilizing the open databases such as AGORA, AGRIS AGRICOLA, PubMed, Biomed Central BEAST CD, VET CD, TEEAL, AGRICOLA.