Manual cataloguing and classification skill acquisition and practices among cataloguers in Federal and State University Libraries

Abstract

This study investigated manual cataloguing and classification skill acquisition and practices among cataloguers in Federal and State University libraries in South – East, Nigeria. The researcher employed the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised 201 professional cataloguers and librarians in the university libraries in South- East. The entire population was used for the study. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Two instruments titled: “Librarians Cataloguing and Classification practices (LCCPQ) and “Test of Cataloguing and Classification Skills of Cataloguers (TCCSC) were used for data collection. The instruments were validated by three experts from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The reliability index of 0.70 and 0.81 were obtained for two parts of the LCCPQ while 0.71, 0.73 and 0.86 were obtained for TCCSC using Cronbach Alpha and K-R 21 Method. Mean was used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the research were based on the research questions. The findings on research question one (1) shows that manual cataloguing skills acquisition scores of cataloguers in federal university libraries are slightly more than those in the state university libraries. The findings on research question two (2) were in favour of cataloguers from state university libraries which indicated that cataloguers from state university libraries have higher or slightly more manual cataloguing and classification practices than federal university libraries.   However, in the test of null hypothesis, the mean rating of the two groups (federal and state university libraries) among cataloguers shows that their manual cataloguing and classification skills acquisition and practices did not differ significantly. In conclusion, cataloguers in federal university libraries acquire manual cataloguing and classification skills more when compared to those cataloguers in state- owned university libraries while those in state university libraries practiced more of manual cataloguing than federal university libraries. It is therefore, imperative that accessibility to information resources in these libraries would also vary. Thus, there is still need for both institutions to be upgraded . Based on the findings, it was recommended that cataloguers in federal and state university libraries should be trained in order to improve their manual cataloguing and classification skill acquisition and practices.