Utilization of References Resources and Services by Patrons of the Kaduna State Library Board.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study The public library has been defined by as a library “authorized by state law,supported from general public fund or special tax fund voted for the benefitof the citizen of the country, town, city or region which maintains it on thebasis of equal access to all.The library in a community provides a unique service that should be accessible to everybody. Library is an institution that acquires, organizes, processes and disseminates information materials in all disciplines to those that need them with little or no expense on their part. The public library is a type of library from inception which has been regarded as a free library set up to provide service to everyone. It serves the community; hence it is referred to as people’s university, Adimora as cited in Moses2015. Of all types of libraries, public library has the most heterogeneous clients to serve. The services are directed at everyone including literate, non- literate, students, teachers, farmers, industrialists, doctors, bankers, civil servants, businessmen, poor, wealthy, able, and disabled peoples etc. The public library must aim to support the general interest of the community it serves so as to contribute to the quality of life and add to the totality of man’s happiness and awareness of himself, others and his environment. The UNESCO public library manifesto issued in 1949, revised in 1972 and 1994 declares: ‘the public library is the local centre of information, making all kinds of knowledge and information readily available to its users.” The services of the public library are provided on the basis of equality of access to all regardless of age, sex, race, religion, nationality, language or social status. Specific services and materials must be provided for those users who cannot for whatever reason use the regular services and materials for example, linguistic minority, peoples with disabilities or people in hospital or prison. The same manifesto gave the key missions that should be at the core of publiclibrary services as follows:- creating and strengthening reading habits in children from an early age, supporting both individual and self-conducted education as well as formal education at all level, providing opportunities for personal creative development, stimulating the imagination and creativity of children and young people, creating awareness of cultural heritage, appreciating the arts/scientific achievements and innovations,, providing access to cultural expression of all performing arts, fostering inter – cultural dialogue and favoring cultural diversity, supporting the tradition, ensuring access for citizens to all sorts of community information, providing adequate information services to local enterprises/associations and interest groups, facilitating the development of information and computer literacy skills, and also supporting and participating in literacy activities and programs for all age groups, and initiating such activities if necessary, Edoka as cited in Moses 2015. Achebe (2013) notes that the study of ancient and medieval library leaves no one in doubt about the value of public libraries in education. She listed some protagonists of public library services such as Edward Edwards of Britain, Melvin Dewey of America and Antonio Pannizi of Italy who at various times in the history of libraries worked tirelessly to establish their public libraries for the purpose of bringing education and knowledge to the doorsteps of their people thereby encouraging these people to read without necessarily going to school. Olanlokun and Achebe (2013) were of the view that the first public library in Nigeria was the Lagos municipal library which was a subscription library with branches in parts of the country. These were followed by the Nigerian government public relation office library located at Lagos, and the numerous reading rooms in the Eastern, Western, and Northern Nigeria. The objectives of public libraries are thus: providing information needs of the community, support their educational efforts (both formal and informal), encourage purposeful use of leisure, encourage and promote reading – habit especially among children. This study focuses on reference service which is one of the services offered by public libraries. The provision of reference service is an important function of a public library. Readers are provided this service on requests. People have different reference queries that need to be solved by the librarian. Hence it is generally a person –to –person service. In some cases, reference processes involve interviewing the reader to enable the reference librarian articulate the problem of the user clearly. Assistance is necessary in fulfilling functions, and a specific administrative organization of qualified personnel must be provided. Alokun (2013) was of the view that reference services involve assisting readers in obtaining information from the library. Consequently, the main objective of reference service is to find precisely the right materials to solve immediate problems. Reference service is also the various library activities deliberately designed to facilitate easy availability of information Edoka (2010). Many public libraries were established in the last one hundred years in several parts of the country and they give prominence to reference service. For instance the Lagos town council library established in the early 1950s provided reference service to adult users who studies mainly for public examinations. The Lagos municipal library opened its main and branch library services to the public and provided children reference services. In the Western states of Nigeria, mobile reference service and loan services were provided in the state capital in the 1970s even though other cities and towns in the state had no access to such service. The regional reference library was opened in Kaduna in 1963 and branches were opened in other parts of the region. The divisional libraries in the Eastern parts such as Onitsha, Enugu, Awka, also gives prominence to reference services to their clients. More recently, the various state library boards give prominence to reference services even though most of them were poorly funded (Olanlokun, 2013). Some reference services offered to clientele are as follows: Inter–Library loan service, user education service, Current awareness service, reprographic service, computer literature search/online searches, Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) etc. Inter – library loan service occur when a library do not have some materials needed by users and instead of discharging the user, the library will seek for that particular material from another library to make sure that the user get the appropriate material he/she needed so as not to be stranded. Having identified their areas of needs and requests, the borrowing and lending process can also take advantage of the internet for both requesting and delivery of inter-library loan materials. The essence of a library engaging in inter-library loan is to enrich its collection and provide improved and qualitative services to users. User education service is another type of reference service offered to user of the library. In this case the reference librarian acquaints the users on how to use the library and the resources in the library. User education is instruction given to readers to help them make use of the library. It is concerned with the whole information and communication process and one part of this involves the total interaction of the users with the library. Generally, the reasons for user education centers on issue of acquainting the users with the library building itself, staff, library tools etc. the absence of this is why the users easily get frustrated when the time come for them to use the library. Current Awareness Service; this service involves displaying of new accessions in the library over a period of not less than one week for users to browse through. Periodic exhibition are also held on topical issues for academic and research interest. Reprographic service involves making available materials that may not given out on loan in print (photocopy and printing) and non-print (CD-Burning, Scanning) formats. Authors like Abel, Gogdil and Zaka (2012) stated that whatever be the future, the services of information provision will continue to be an essential instrument of human welfare. Similarly, Margeston (2012) also recognizes the importance of dynamic access to information. Edoka (2010) on his part avers that the entire human and material resources in the library are put in place at a considerable expense for the overall purpose of effective services to the library users. Aboyade as cited in Moses (2015), Reference department is defined as “one of the sections in the library. It is a readersection with information resources that may be consulted on the premises, but not borrowed”. This section is responsible for reference and referral services.Reference service is essentially, the process of answering questions. It is theability of reference librarian to translate queries into terms which can meet up with a given reference resources.The reference librarian is the person in charge of reference section of thelibrary who undergoes a professional training in librarianship and at the same time have the capability of answering an apparent simple question through supplying information based on search in the collection instruction in the use of the library. Kent as cited in Moses (2015) stated reference sources are those materials providing information needed by the library users. They contain background information, facts, figures and statistics. Some notable examples of reference sources “are Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Biographies, Directories, Atlases and Year Books”. They refer users to sources of information required.Reference enquiries are reference questions that the library users ask the reference librarian in order to get information or guide to the materials where it can be found.A reference service is the total or the culmination of the library activities aimed at facilitating the use of library and its resources. Reference services can be described as the services provided by the library to its users so as to meet the information needs of its community; this in turnmakes the library relevant in contributing to the socio-economic, educational and political development of the community where the library is situated. In other words, reference service in libraries is most often defined as direct personal assistance to readers, seeking information. If the three common functions of libraries are the acquisition, organization and dissemination of information, then reference service is directed primarily towards the dissemination function. In a nutshell, reference service can best be defined and approached in understandable terms of functions since there are several definitions of the term. The nature of reference service differs remarkably among libraries in terms of type and size. That is, school libraries undertake reference work in a different manner than the librarians who work in other institutions or in business settings; reference services provided in academic libraries differ in some respects from the reference services offered in public libraries. The size and characteristics of the potential user groups vary greatly. A librarian in a special library may serve thirty professional users, while a school librarian may have three hundred children who regularly visit the library. So also the reference libraries in academic and public libraries would have different population of users to render service to. It is nevertheless, true that certain identifiable activities are found to some degree in the reference services provided in most, if not all libraries. Thus, the primary process of reference service is always the same that is, translating a request into termsthat can be met by different reference sources. It is always the duty of thereference librarian to listen to the patron finds out and translates his/her information needs and provides the correct source to satisfy those information needs. The reference services however, may range from a minimal level of help to user in locating information, on the one hand, to the actual delivery ofinformation to client, on the other. Reference service is the most demanding and the most intellectually and brain tasking aspect of the librarianship; the performance of which can make or mar the effectiveness of the overall service of the library, or the image of the library profession as a whole. The reference department of a library is usually referred to as the” show case” or the window/mirror of the library. This is because; reference service embraces a variety of activities, such service being with those who patronize the library. Related to this, is the importance of information in acquisition of knowledge.Information is vital to decision making and for living effectively. Forexample, movements from place to place, when and how, personaldevelopment, and so on depend on the pieces of information needed fortaking decisions. Information sets the stone rolling. This is why it isgenerally believed that information is an economic resource. It is anessential ingredient of development of any society. Similarly, reference workis defined as the personal assistance, given by the librarian to individualreaders in pursuit of information. This involves not only locating thematerials where the required information can be found but also locating theinformation and sorting out what information is relevant front a mass ofinformation. In short, reference involved all aspects of information boththeoretical and practical. In library services, failure to locate any requiredinformation leads to a user’s frustration. Misinformation and disinformationhave the same effect. A satisfied user, on the other hand, serves as a public relations officer for the library. Thus ’“assistance to readers” is a great tent of a phrase that embraces an enormous range and variety of activities. Many users want to know more and more about less and less; they want to acquire more knowledge; and they want to know more about their society and their historical cultures. 1.2 Statement of the Problem Reference resources and services are used to meet the information needs of library users. Their effective availability and use however rest on the personnel available. However, it has been observed that the reference resources and services in the Kaduna State Library Board seem to be unavailable. It has also been observed that some library patrons find it difficult to explore reference resources and services provided. Consequently, the library has been considered by most patrons as being irrelevant and of no much use to them. It is against this background that the researcher is interested in the study of reference information resources and services in the Kaduna State Library Board Kaduna. Given the varied and complex nature of serving a heterogeneous clientele with published and unpublished information resources for effective exploitation, investigating to know their information resources and services becomes important. Furthermore, none or very little is known about the Kaduna State Library Board, Kaduna in terms of their reference information resources and services this is the problem this study isinvestigating. 1.3 Research Questions This study seeks to find answers to the following research questions: What are the types of reference resources and services available for use by patrons? To what extent do users in the study utilize reference resources and services of the library? To want extent do the available resources and services meet the information needs of the users? What are the problems militating against the provision and utilization of reference resources and services in this study? What strategies can be adopted to overcome the problems militating against the provision and utilization of information resources and services? 1.4 Objectives of the Study To find out the types of reference resources available for use in Kaduna State Library Board, Kaduna. To ascertain the extent in which the users in this study utilize reference resources and services of the library. To know to what extent in which the available resources and services meet the information needs of the users. To find out problems militating against the provision and utilization of reference resources and services in this study. To proffer solution that can be adopted to overcome the problems militating against the provision and utilization of information resources and services. 1.5 Significance of the Study The significance of this study could help librarians to rise to the challenges in order to render more efficient services to their clients.More so, the study will create awareness to the clients on the importance of public libraries and how best to seek for information. It is also hoped that the result of this study will be of much importance to government who hitherto had undermined the usefulness of libraries in nation building, for them to know the responsibilities of providing effective institutional library services. The study will also help government to establish functional libraries at the minutest levels to assist users in information services. To other researchers, the result of this study will be a springboard for future research. 1.6 Scope of the Study The study seeks to investigate the utilization of reference resources and services in Kaduna State Library Board, Kaduna. The study therefore will be limited to the type of reference information resources and services in Kaduna State Library Board, Kaduna and the extent of utilization of available resources and services. The coverage of this research is strictly on the Kaduna State Library Board. 1.7 Operational Definition of Terms The following terms used in the research are operationally defined as follows: Public Library: This is a library established by the state laws and funded byPublic funds to meet the information needs of the entire citizen ofthe state. Reference Information Resources: These are documents that contain Information on any topic be it an event or an individual. Example includes Library books, serials, encyclopedia, bibliographies, dictionaries, computerized Resources, etc. Library Services: These referred to the assistance given by the librarian toindividual in search of information of whatever type as well as variouslibrary activities deliberately designed to facilitate easy availability of information. Library Patrons: The study conceives these as those that visit the library for information needs. REFERENCES Achebe, B.S. (2013). Special Libraries: ALA World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services. 2luled. Chicago, American Library Association, P.782. Edoka, B. E. (2010). Introduction to Library Science. Onitsha: Palma Publishing and Link Company Ltd Margeston, R. S. (2012).Reference Services; the New Dimension in librarianship. College and Research libraries. 22. Pp 3-14. Moses, S. (2015). Utilization of reference information resources and services in State Library Boards in North Central Zone: An assessment of Benue State Library Board. An unpublished project submitted to the School of information Technology, Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa State. Olanlakun, S.O (2013). Perspective reference services in Library the Nigeria Perspective. Lagos Journal of Library and Information Science. 1(1) Sept. pp 85-90.