Faculty Members Awareness and Attitude towards the Use of Institutional Repositories (IRs) in Federal Universities in South South, Nigeria

This study examines faculty members' awareness and attitude towards the use of Institutional Repositories (IRs) in federal universities in South South, Nigeria. The total population for this study comprises of 572 lecturers who are registered library users in seven federal universities in South South, Nigeria. The total enumeration sampling technique was used because of the manageable size of population. Questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Findings from this study revealed that the level of awareness of institutional repository among faculty members in federal universities in South South, Nigeria is high, also the study found that the attitude of faculty members towards the use of institutional repositories in federal universities in South South, Nigeria is positive., that faculty members in federal universities in South South, Nigeria use IR for are: accessing e-journal articles for teaching and research; accessing e-book collection for teaching and research; accessing scholarly works to prepare lecture notes; accessing electronic theses and dissertations for teaching and research; accessing materials for seminar presentations; depositing scholarly works for safekeeping; developing collaborative workspace/information sharing space, increasing their visibility as authors and researchers and to participate in the scholarly communication process among others. The following were suggested to improve on the adoption of Institutional Repositories by faculty members: Contributing scholarly works to the University’s IR by faculty members should be made an institutional mandate by Federal university management in Nigeria; University library should be organizing orientation programmes, seminars and workshops regularly so as to create in faculty members the awareness of the usefulness and benefits of institutional repositories among others.