Student Use of the Library: A Case Study at Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, Nigeria.

The study examined the use of the library by students at the Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic. A combined quantitative and qualitative approach using the case study design was adopted for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 200 students from each of the five faculties of the Polytechnic, totaling 1,000 students, and 15 library and school staff. A survey questionnaire developed by the researchers was employed to determine the use of the library while a face-to-face interview was conducted to gathered data from library and school staff. The reliability co-efficient of the questionnaire via Cronbach Alpha returns an r = 0.87. Four research questions were developed to guide the study. The findings show that more than half of the library users at the Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic visit the library once a day. They use the library to read, to borrow books, and to make photocopies. Students were satisfied with the library collections and services but not with electronic resources. As the library is neither networked nor connected to the Internet, students usually patronize the cyber cafe close to their school as an alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]