Disaster preparedness and prevention strategies of university libraries in Nigeria

The objective of the study is to assess the disaster preparedness and prevention strategies of university libraries in Nigeria. The descriptive research design was adopted for this study. The study covers federal and state university libraries in South- South, Nigeria. Questionnaires were used to elicit data from the respondents. The population of the study comprises librarians in the federal and state university libraries covered in the study area. The exact population of the study is 185 librarians. The researchers employed the total enumeration sampling technique which involves studying the entire respondents. 185 copies of the questionnaires were distributed to the respondents; the researchers were able to retrieve only 167 copies of the questionnaire. Hence there was 90% response rate. The data collected from the respondents were analysed using simple percentage and frequency count. The study revealed that the types of disasters that occur in the university libraries understudy are mutilation of library materials, computer viruses, biological agents, hacking, theft of library materials and leaking roofs and other substandard library building materials. The study also revealed that majority of the respondents understudy indicated there is no disaster preparedness plan available in their university library. Fire extinguishers, air fresheners, anti-virus, thunder arrestors, sand buckets and emergency exit doors are the disaster preparedness facilities and equipment available for mitigation of disaster in the university libraries understudy. It was recommended from the study that university libraries should have a proper surveillance in place to reduce the mutilation of library print resource currently in the increase in Nigeria. University library management as a matter of urgency should draft out and approve disaster preparedness plan for their libraries to be able to efficiently tackle disasters that might occur at any time.