CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
With the advent of the internet and its mass intrusion into all aspect of human life and activities, there have been a vast amount of information and high-quality reference materials available for students to use when writing papers and carrying out research. Libraries in higher institutions have integrated various ICT technologies to library services they offer. The technology embrace has led to the proliferation of electronically available information resources. These resources include CD – ROM databases, electronic mails, Online Public Access Catalogues (OPAC) and internet browsing (Oduwole & Akpati, 2003). The Internet which is the most prominent of this source has made possible access to electronic books and journals; various databases and search engines. Agboola (2003) while discussing the ways in which Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has influenced library services opined that while using ICT, it is possible for a researcher in his office to access the full text digital contents of local and distant libraries and databases using computers and the internet. Students as well have access to this opportunity, though majority access through commercial cybercafés.
Libraries all over the world make available a wide variety of electronic information sources (EIS) for use by the undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and staff in their respective institutions. These EIS form an essential part of the reference services provided by the academic libraries. The explosive growth of the Web has made it more difficult for any individual site to be seen, or for any individual patron to make sense of it. The shift now is from not being able to get enough information to not being able to identify and retrieve reliable and accurate information from the volumes of information available in digital form. As patrons continue to make greater use of the Internet, librarians now use web sites/portals as a means to facilitate access to specific Internet and other digital resources. Zhou (2003) defined a web portal as a doorway that can be customized by individual users to automatically filter information from the web.
O’Leary (2000) notes that academic library are by far the most prolific creators of library portals, both general and in dozens of specific areas of library practices. A research team at LISU at Loughborough University noted the benefits of a library portal to include: providing a single point of access to library resources, allowing teaching staff to direct students to useful resources more easily, promoting the resources held by the library including subscription, improving navigation of library resources, improving access to scholarly and educational web based resources, providing more efficient access to e-resources and improving service delivery. As primary gateways for information, academic libraries should offer high-quality vetted Internet search engine links, Open Access databases and journals, user guides/help-sheets, and Information Literacy instructions on their websites. Academic libraries must make use of their websites or portals to point their patrons to the right electronic resources. The use of open source, open access databases and journals, and free web based resources will go a long way to address some of the financial challenges in the implementation and delivery of online services (Gbaje, 2007).
