Working Conditions, Staff training and Development Programmes as determinants of Librarians’ Productivity in Academic Libraries in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine working conditions and staff training and development programmes as determinants of librarians’ productivity in academic libraries in Imo state. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The entire populations of 79 librarians were used for the study.  Questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. The questionnaire was validated and the reliability co-efficient for each of clusters A and B were 0.77 and 0.73 respectively. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation, while z-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that good working conditions increase librarians’ productivity in academic libraries. It also found out that opportunities for staff training and development programmes enhance higher job performance among librarians in academic libraries. Hypotheses tested reveal, that there is no significant difference in the responses of librarians on how working conditions determine their productivity. Recommendations were made based on the findigs that, academic library management should provide good and congenial working conditions to make librarians improve their job performance. Also, library management should improve the job skills of librarians through conferences and workshop to enable librarians keep abreast with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) needed in modern day librarianship.