AWARENESS AND USE OF INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THE PRODUCTIVITY OF FACULTY MEMBERS IN A NIGERIAN SPECIALIZED UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The paper discussed faculty awareness and use of information sources and services in Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE). The total population of the study was 179 faculty members from two colleges, namely College of Science and College of Technology. Total enumeration method called CENSUS was adopted to include all teaching staff of the university. The research instrument used for the study was a structured questionnaire to elicit data from the respondents. The study showed that faculties in FUPRE are strongly aware of journals, books, online sources/CD ROMs, colleagues, conference papers and encyclopedia while the respondents are unaware of statistical publications and government documents. The study also revealed that the respondents are strongly aware of current awareness services, referral services, internet/ email, photocopying services and the respondents are unaware of selective dissemination of information, database searching and statistical data analysis. The study showed thatthe respondents use information sources mainly to meet their teaching needs and research and publications needs. All the respondents in this study (100%) indicated that information sources utilization improved their academic productivity to a very great extent User training programmes coupled with constant internet access were recommended 32 to improve faculty awareness, access and use of information sources/  services.