Information Literacy Skills of Academic Staff in Nigerian Federal Universities

The volume of information resources at the disposal of academic staff members is massive hence requisite information literacy skills to access the available information resources, evaluate and effectively use them is vital for research productivity. Several studies have examined academics’ institutional factors, demographic characteristics and information utilization skills. However, these studies have not adequately addressed information literacy skills of academics. This study, therefore, examined information literacy skills on in federal universities in Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. Multistage sampling technique was used to select one thousand one hundred and fifty-seven (1,057) academic staff members from federal universities in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. The instruments used for data collection were: Information Literacy Skills Acquisition Scale, and Information Literacy Skills Scale (α= 0.92) Eight hundred and seventy-three (873) copies of questionnaire were completed, returned and used in the study which represent (83%) response rate. Two research questions and one hypothesis were answered and data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The mean score of overall research productivity of academic staff members was. The mean scores of information literacy skills, an indication that information literacy skills of academics in Nigerian federal universities was high. To sustain academic staff information literacy skills constant training of academics on information literacy skills acquisition is hereby recommended.