TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE I
APPROVAL PAGE II
CERTIFICATION III
DEDICATION IV
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V
TABLE OF CONTENTS VI
LIST OF TABLES VIII
ABSTRACT IX
CHAPTER
ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study 1
Statement of the Problem 9
Purpose of the Study 10
Research Questions 10
Significance of the Study 11
Scope of the Study 12
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Conceptual Framework 14
Concept of Medical Libraries 14
Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 18
Management of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 22
Challenges in Management of
Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 32
Strategies for Improvement of Electronic Resources Management in Medical Libraries in South South 37
Theoretical framework 42
System Theory 42
Review of Related Empirical Studies 43
Summary of the Literature Review 52
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHOD
Design of the Study 54
Area of the Study 54
Population of the study 55
Sample and Sampling Techniques 55
Instrument for Data Collection 55
Validation of the Instrument 57
Method of Data Collection 57
Method of Data Analysis 57
CHAPTER
FOUR: RESULTS
59
CHAPTER
FIVE: DISCUSION, SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Discussion of
Findings 71
Implications
of the Study 79
Recommendations
of the Study 80
Limitation of
the Study 81
Suggestions
for Further Research 81
Conclusion 82
References 84
Appendix A: “Medical Library” Management of
Electronic Resources Questionnaire 88
LIST OF TABLES Page
Table 1: Mean Rating and
Standard Deviation of Respondents on the critical
elements in planning electronic
resources in medical libraries in
South-South of Nigeria. 59
Table 2: Mean Rating and
Standard Deviation of Respondents on ways of
organizing electronics resources
in medical library in the South-South of Nigeria. 61
Table 3: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of Respondents on the control measures employed in managing electronic resources in medical libraries in the South-South Nigeria 63
Table 4: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of Respondents on the challenges faced in managing electronic resources in the South-South of Nigeria. 65
Table 5: Mean Rating and
Standard Deviation of Respondents on the strategies for enhancing the management of electronic resources in medical libraries in South-South Nigeria. 67
ABSTRACT
This work
investigates the management of electronic resources in medical libraries in
South South Nigeria. Accordingly, six research
objectives were drawn for the study which include; to examine the critical elements in the planning process in the management
of electronic resources; to identify the methods used in organizing electronic
resources; to identify the electronic resource management competencies
possessed by professionals in medical libraries; determined the extent of
control in managing electronic resources; ascertain the challenges faced in
management of electronic resources as well as proffer strategies to enhance
effective management of electronic resources in medical libraries in South
South Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study
with a population of 71 medical libraries staff. Five medical libraries
consisting of 71 librarians were sampled out of the 14 universities that were
used for the study. The questionnaire consist of 76 items which were the
instrument used to collect data and were also validated by three research
expert in the department of library and information science university of
Nigeria Nsukka. They were presented in tables and analyzed using the mean.
Findings shows among others that each of this medical library, developed
a prioritized list of goals for electronic resources,
create small electronic resources committee, laying
down policies and procedure for attaining objectives, developing policies to
determine resources to catalogued, prepares and properly executes electronic
resources budgets; anticipate future problems,
adopting necessary measure and making policy change as well as matching
recommendation from faculties based on the available funds. The use of MARC, OCLC and OPAC are the most adequate
methods of organising electronic information resources, Electronic Resources
Control System will be adopted to regulate the use of the resources to avoid
abuse behaviour. The problem in the electronic resources management is
inadequate financing and lack of computer literacy skills. Following these
findings, recommendations were made to the effect that medical libraries should
initiate training programs for library staff in collaboration with campus
computer centers, adequate funding should be provided for the medical library
to facilitate its services, medical librarians should design library websites
to provide links to their electronic/online resources and web/internet based
services.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background
of the Study
Medical
libraries are institutions designed to serve physicians, health professionals,
students, patients, consumers and medical researchers in finding health and
scientific information to improve, update, access or evaluate healthcare.
Medical libraries are typically found in hospitals, medical schools, private
industries and in medical associations. A typical medical library has access to
Medline, select/index and organized information on the web, print and digital
journals collections and print reference books. However, to gain accreditation,
every college of medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, teaching hospital or
public health is required by law to have a medical library appropriate to the
need of the school as specified by an accrediting body such as the liaison
Committee on Medical Education (LCME)’s standard. Some academic medical
libraries are located in the same building as the general undergraduate library
but most are located near or in the medical college or faculty. Ita (2012)
defined medical libraries as institutions established to provide services and
information resources to support and advance the mission to patient care
research and bio medical education for health institution.
The purpose of establishing medical libraries
according to Scharcher (2001) is to ensure that health care providers have
access to reliable, relevant and up-to-date
published information that enhances the quality of care.
Thus, the hospital libraries are established to serve
physicians, pharmacists, nurses, students on training and other allied medical
staff who discharge their responsibility in the clinical areas of the
hospitals. While the academic medical libraries which this study is based is
meant to serve both undergraduate, postgraduate students, lecturers and other
allied medical health researchers within and outside the faculty where the
library is located. Fawowe (1987) in Ita (2012) assert that medical libraries
tend to have homogeneous information resources dealing mostly with nothing but
medicine and other medical related discipline. At times, they also experiment
some diversification so that medical libraries will have at their disposal non
medical literature for general knowledge. In view of this, medical library
managers are being asked to meet the need of patrons, communities,
institutions, corporations, and the society at large; even as they face
competing demand and limited resources at their disposal. However, the
manual or traditional ways of management prints resources as a result of
increase in activities and overwhelming information resources in various
formats in the last three decades has created a shift in the cultural
perceptions on electronic resources management. The materials that now need to
be controlled and managed have grown beyond the traditional paper based to
electronic resources management.
Similarly, Dismukes J. (2009) is of the
view that medical library management can be implemented locally or on behalf of
a group of institutions, other services utilize the data in World Cat to perform
collection analysis, selection and other collection management activities at
the network level. He further maintain that today web-based medical library
management software has evolved over time from a variety of off-line activities
that have often demand significant integration efforts and work around to meet
libraries evolving needs future management service to be more integrated,
streamline and efficiently designed to be part of a whole, rather than a sum of
many parts.
Anbu, Kataria and Ram
(2003) are of the view that electronic resources have become an inseparable
part of medical libraries and researchers. They are often described as
resources which are published through the electronic media and accessed through
electronic media. They may be broadly defined as any peer-reviewed publications
that are directly created and stored in electronic format either as standalone
or a database for the purpose of delivery and retrieval electronically through
various communication media for either networked access (through the internet)
or offline access through the CD-ROM or floppy disk etc. in various formats
like HTML, PDF, text, postscript, etc, skaggs observes that electronic
resources is a simple and generic term that can include anything from a PDF of
government report to an aggregated database, and research on the topic is as
varied as the type of electronic resources that can be discussed. With its
myriads formats and types and with the successful adaptation and acceptance of
these formats amongst the academic there is no doubt that the electronic
resources are here to stay. The main
reason for the acceptance of electronic resources as part of the mainstream of
channel of scholarly communication in medical libraries is the nature of these
resources. The electronic resources provide an enviable comfort which the print
counterpart failed to provide.
It is worthy to note
that, electronic resources can be considered in terms of content available in
database, uniform resource link (URI) as well as in terms of devices used in
libraries to process, organize and manage for easy retrieval an use. Dafiaghor
(2012) view electronic resources as information materials that require the use
of electronic devices such as personal computer (PCs) laptops, palm tops,
phones, I- pods, I phones, I-pads internet – WAN- Networks etc for their usage.
Some of the most used of these resources include flash drives, memory card,
DVD-VCD; CD-ROMs, DVD-VCD, CD-RAMs, DVD- VCD,CD-R; DVD-, VCD-, CD-WR;
DVD-,VCD-, CD+WR, etc. Aramide and Botharinwa
(2010) Supported his view by including A-V resources, instructional audio
tapes, instructional video tapes, VCD/DVD, radio television, multimedia
projectors, electronic resources – electronic database, e.g., HINARI, ERIC,
e-document, internet/electronic mail facility, CD-ROM, computers telephone
facility (GSM/Landline) VSAT, printer and digital cameras.
The history of
medical services in Nigeria
dates back to 1860’s when Sacred
Heart Hospital
was established. Though medical library history in Nigeria is traced to 1945 when Yaba
central medical library was established as an agency of the Federal ministry of
health. The existing medical libraries of note are attached to the medical
schools of the universities. They sprang up out of the inevitable need to
support teaching, learning and research in the medical school. The demand for
more doctors in the post independence era necessitated the establishment of
medical schools at the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, University
of Ibadan and University of Lagos. The number was
later increased to six when the projected schools of medicine at the University
of Ife, Nigeria (Nsukka) and at the Benin Institute of Technology materialized.
This also gave rise to the establishment of medical schools in most federal and
state universities that were established to further compliment the services of
university medical schools at the local and community levels. Because of the
late development and paucity of medical libraries, the art of medical
librarianship never had a well established tradition. Therefore, its services
were not usually based on expertise knowledge but on the ability of individuals
to develop skills and experience while on the job. Thus, a trained librarian,
with or without medical library experience, is distinct asset, since the basic
tactics of library services in all types of libraries are the same. Ideally
medical librarian should keep abreast of new developments in medicine and other
health related issues in medical librarianship. The crux of any medical
reference collection should include among other reference tools; Index Medicus;
Chemical Abstracts; Biological Abstracts; Excerpta Medica; British
Encyclopaedia of Medical Practice; relevant dictionaries, handbooks and
directories. At times the medical librarian may find it rewarding to include
reference tools of a general nature among his special reference collection in
addition to those already existing in the main library.
However, management has been defined by many
authors using different approaches, but all geared towards the same or related
meaning. Terry (2014) define management as a process “consisting of planning,
organising, staffing and controlling, performed to determine and accomplished
the objectives by the use of people and resources.” This definition however
considers management first as a “process” i.e. a systematic way of doing
things. Secondly, it state four management activities: Planning, organising,
staffing and controlling. Planning is thinking of an action in advance.
Organising, involves coordination of human and materials resources of an
organization. Staffing is entails motivation and direction of subordinates.
Controlling is an attempt to ensure that there is no deviation from norms or
plan. Thirdly, it states that managers uses people and other resources. For
example an information system manager who wants to improve the services, might
try not to only maintain the system, but also improve the level of training on
staff and users. Fourthly, management is view as the act of achieving the
organization’s objectives.
According
to Gullattes (2005) management is the art and science of getting things done
through people. Successful managers are skills at planning, organising,
motivation, supervising and coordinating people and resources. They are also
skilled at planning-thinking strategically, challenging the status quo,
envisioning future direction, inspiring, coaching and empowering people with
the requisite knowledge needed to succeed in any organisation . Take a medical
library manager or an electronic resources manager for example. In their
respective roles, each has different organizational responsibilities. Yet both
must plan, organise, handle resources either print or electronic, oversee the
activities of others, monitor the quality of users and allocate a stable,
efficient, well-run service which requires managerial experience.
Yu and
Breivold (2008) noted that an electronic resources manager must be a change
agent. He must demonstrate the courage needed to innovate and transform the
library in a way that will ensure remote access to the information content by
users. He must develop a work culture and climate that support high-performing
teams and cultivate in people a willingness to change, innovate, and embrace
core medical library values that support quality service that require
managerial abilities.
For the
purpose of this work, one can simply define management as the process of
getting things done efficiently through adequate management of electronic
resources to ensure remote access to the information content. This can be
achieved by addressing electronic resources from the perspective of planning,
organising staffing and controlled experience of the medical libraries.
Planning
starts with medical libraries developing a prioritized list of goals for
electronic resources to guide their work. Bothmann and Holmberg (2010) noted
that creating a small electronic resources committee of key players in a
library’s electronic resources management work is the first step. The key players
should come from various units or divisions of the library. The committee would
then identify all the staff involved in the electronic resource workflow from
administrative support personnel to administrators.
Ngalla
(2007) in Echezona (2009), described planning role in the library that it
entails laying the platform on which all other roles are played. This involves
defining the objectives, developing strategies, determining the staffing and
library services, laying down policies and procedure for attaining the
objectives and preparing budgets. The development and use of policies is
critical in electronic resources management and for communicating a library’s
goals. White (2005) state that aside from collection development policies,
libraries needs policies that address issues such as types of resources to
support licensing issues, access how and which resources should be catalogued,
placed in a content management system or subject guide or added to electronic
resources management system. When the planning stage of management is set
right, there is the need for the organization role to be effective.
In relation
to planning and policy development, organization of electronic resources is a
significant aspect of electronic resources management. Librarians organize part
or significant aspect of electronic resources management activities in order to
determined what is not getting done or if things are done rightly.
Hsieh-Yees’s
(2007) is of the view that organising electronic resources involves showing catalogers
how to use MARC and AACR2 to create accurate and complete bibliographic
descriptions of electronic resources to help students, catalogers, educators
and any one new to these resources gain competency in describing and providing
access to them. Staffing entails the personnel component of the medical
libraries, recruiting competent professionals with the requisites skills to
plan, organized and controls the electronic resources in other to ensure remote
access. Lamarca and Robert (1997) supported this view when they said medical
library staff facilitates access to medical literatures as well as answering
students and lecturers most pressing research questions such as coaching
through the search process to locate the best medical evidence from the medical
literature. While control of electronic resources is all about regular
inspection of the activities of library staff, and as well establishing
measures to prevent the abuse of electronic resources effectively.
Yu and
Breivold (2008) believe that developing an “Electronic Resources Access Control
System’. To control all subscribed electronic resources within the medical
library IP range. It will suspend the user’s access privilege if any abuse
behaviour is monitored; the system provides a real time control to the access
of electronic resources according to the download and frequency. If any abuse
behaviour happens, a warning page will pop up on the user’s screen notifying
the violation and the control measures that will be taken by the system. This
will enable the user to slow down his download speed. If the user ignores the
warning and continues his or her abuse behaviour, the system will take the
following actions regarding the violation degree;
- Suspend the user’s access to
the database
- Suspend the user’s access to
the network out of the library
- Suspend the user’s network
account.
The management of electronic resources
in libraries (medical libraries) has become increasingly important because of
their growing size and complexity. Mathews (2014) opine that electronic
resources management software such as Electro Optical System Web medical, EOS.
Web. digital, EOS. enterprise, EOS Web express were specifically designed to
empower knowledge manager to effectively manage all electronic resources and
web subscription, such as; electronic journals, databases and electronic books.
Management of electronic resources makes
it possible to c
