Access to electronic information resources among students of higher institutions in Taraba State, Nigeria

The study examined access to electronic information resources among students of higher institutions in Taraba State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to find out the types of electronic information resources available in the tertiary institutions in Taraba State, to determine whether the students had accessed the available electronic information resources or not, and if not, to determine the reasons for not accessing the available electronic information resources in the surveyed libraries, to determine the frequency of access to the available electronic information resources and to determine the extent of access to the available electronic information resources in the institutional libraries under study. Quantitative research methodology, with survey and cross-sectional design was employed for the study. The population of the study comprises the three higher institutions with available and functional electronic information resources namely: Taraba State University, Federal University, Wukari and Taraba State College of Nursing and Midwifery with 10748 registered users and out of these, a sample of 370 was arrived at using Research advisor table 2006 and the respondents were randomly selected from the libraries. Self-developed questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, via statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 16.0. The study found that various types of electronic information resources were available in the institutional libraries under study, these include: e-books, e-journals, emails, online databases, CD-ROMs among others. It was also found that majority of the respondents had access to the available electronic information resources in the surveyed institutions and only few respondents had indicated that they did not had access to the available electronic information resources in their institutional libraries due to poor Internet connectivity, lack of searching skills, lack of awareness, and inadequate computer terminals. The study also found that the extent of access to the available electronic information resources was moderate. Additionally, the study revealed that there is statistically significant relationship between gender and age in access to electronic information resources in the institutional libraries under study as x2 (120, N=327) =1.298, P> 0.05.