Student’s Perception of Library Services in Universities in Benue State.

Abstract

The study examines how student perceive the library service offered in Benue state university and the federal university of agriculture Makurdi, Benue State.200 students were randomly selected from these institutions for the purpose of the study.Questionnaire was used as main instrument for the gathering of data.The researcher also interviewed some of the librarians working in the libraries under study.The paper avers that most of the students were aware of library services as an indispensable tool for learning, teaching and research.The need to know how student perceive the library services offered to them by the librarians has been a concern for this study.It wonders whether the recent advancement in information and communication technology (ICT) and Bookstores has a negative effect on the use of library, or how the students perceive the library services offered to them.To this end, it sought to carryout research among the students of these universities in Benue that uses the library.The analysis underscores the perception of the students on those library services offered to them by their institution and how such services are been perceived by them and what needs to done in order to do away with their negative perception about the library. I. Introduction Back Ground of the StudyThe university library is the bedrock upon which any university is built in order to achieve her primary aim of teaching learning, research and community service.University libraries are academic libraries established and attached to university are major aim of providing information material that supports teaching, learning and research.University libraries are the depositories of knowledge that provide the vital under pinning for national development.Being integral part of the university, the libraries are of necessity, educational in purpose.The centrality of the university library is the intellectual life of the university community which is epitomized in the character and efficiency of the university which is gauged by its treatment of its central organ, the library.The university library is the principal instrument of the university in the conservation of recorded knowledge.Proper fulfilment of this role provides a sound basis for the transmission and advancement of knowledge.However, every university library, no matter the size established to render services to its users.The library has to collect materials, published and unpublished, print and non-print, in some depth and globally in almost all the fields of knowledge not necessary in those offered in the university.However, the value of the records of human communication lies in the information they contain.Information can be stored in books, periodicals, Newspapers, teaching societies and professional associations, machine readable databases, manuscripts, archival materials and in many other formals.Although, the university libraries differ in size, population and in other respects, they serve the same purpose everywhere.Their function and objective are basically derived from their parent institution.According to Aguolu and Aguolu (2002) the basic functions of any university is to conserve the existing knowledge, to transmit knowledge through teaching, and to create new knowledge through research.The university library is the university's principal instrument in the conservation of knowledge through its rational, systematic and comprehensive acquisition of all type of human communications records, publish and unpublished, written or oral in recorded form that embody the ideas of knowledge of past since each new idea or invention grows out of accumulated and conserved knowledge.University libraries have the basic academic function of supporting teaching, learning and research activities that go on in their parent institutions.In performing this function university libraries stock thousands of information resourceboth books, journals and other types of materials and provide access to them.However, the importance of well-stocked university libraries cannot be over-stressed; they contribute to the quality of the university as centres of learning and research.Thus the university library has been regarded as "the heart" of the unitthe most indispensable agency of unit for teaching and research .Nwalo (2002) summarised the basic materials needed in most institutional libraries, as:  Reference books of a general nature and reference books in the subject areas including in the institutional programme.

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