IMPACT OF COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR INFORMATION SERVICES IN SELECTED UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of collaborative technology for information services in selected university libraries in the south-east of Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of 194 professional and para professional librarians from the libraries of Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Michael Okpara University Library Umudike, and Nnamdi Azikiwe University Library Awka. 194 copies of questionnaire were shared but only 169 of them were collected. Using descriptive statistics, the mean and percentage of the data were calculated. A mean score of 2.5 or above and a percentage score of 50% were also taken into consideration. The study revealed that the impact of collaborative technology for information services in the selected university libraries under study is the ability to connect with other libraries, the ability to facilitate knowledge sharing and creation with other libraries, the ability to make workplaces more efficient, the ability to combine the expertise and creativity of multiple people into a strategy for problem-solving, the ability to enable librarians to learn from their skills, unique perspectives, and backgrounds, the facilitation of decision-making processes, the facilitation of information sharing and knowledge creation within organizations, and the enhancement of remote teamwork and virtual collaboration. The findings further show the problems associated with collaborative technology for information services, as they include a lack of a central collaboration tool strategy, no feedback from librarians, forced collaboration on employees, a lack of user training, too many leaders, data security, privacy breaches, and unauthorized access to data. The study identified types of information services rendered using collaborative technology as virtual reference services, Digital Resource Access and Sharing Collaborative Research Support, and Learning Management Systems (LMS) Integration, Digital Collaboration Spaces, Research Data Management and Visualization tools, Social Media Engagement and Outreach and Library Space and Resource Management respectively. The study recommends that university libraries should embrace collaborative technology for information sharing, knowledge creation, and management; there should be a central collaboration tool strategy among libraries; training and retraining of staff on the use of collaboration technology, which is critical; data security should be strictly adhered to; and privacy among libraries should be kept accordingly.