Determinants of effective library user education in public and private universities in Kenya

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the various factors that affect the effectiveness of library user education in private and public universities in Kenya. It also assessed how far these library user education programmes/practices are enabling the clientele to make the best use of library resources by giving them the appropriate library skills.

The study covered two public and two private universities and involved 120 students in total, and 28 librarians. It utilized questionnaire and observation checklist in data collection. Being descriptive, it largely used descriptive statistics to analyse data and make inferences.

The findings of the study indicate that the present library user education practices in Kenyan public and private universities have not succeeded in facilitating maximum utilization of information resources and services in the respective libraries due to reasons such as poor timing g of such progrmmes in the students university life, inadequate time allocation to these programmes and institutional factors e.g. Lack of proper policies on library user education as well as lack of evaluation of such programmes.

The study recommends that among other steps, university libraries need to have well stated policies to guide them in the area of user education and more time should be allocated to these programmes. Each form of library user education should be guided by realistic objectives. Even more importantly, it underscores the need to evaluate these progrommes regularly.

Therefore, the study has revealed the state-of-art concerning the performance of university libraries in user education, exposed the various shortcomings in library user education and the reasons for them. It further provides a basis for future action, in the planning an implementation of user education programmes.