ABSTRACT

This research originates from a belief that special libraries in de- veloping countries need to be modernize and implement their ICT infrastructure and articulate information policies that will facilitate the exploitation of information resources to the optimum to increase national productivity. Special libraries and information centres in developing countries in general and in Nigeria in particular should start building their local digital libraries, as the benefit of establish- ing such electronic services is considerably massive and well known for expansion of research activities and for delivering services that satisfy the needs of targeted users.

Current awareness services are designed to keep users informed about recent developments based around user need profiles. In organisa- tional settings, they may operate through both electronic and social interactions aimed at delivering information that is relevant, perti- nent and current. Understanding these interactions can reveal the tensions in current awareness dissemination and help inform ways of making services more effective and efficient.

I report an in-depth, observational study of electronic current aware- ness use within a large London law firm. The study found that selec- tion, re-aggregation and forwarding of information by multiple actors gives rise to a complex socio technical distribution network. Knowl- edge management staff act as a layer of “intelligent filters” sensitive to complex, local information needs; their distribution decisions ad- dress multiple situational relevance factors in a situation fraught with information overload and restrictive time pressures. Their deci- sions aim to optimize conflicting constraints of recall, precision and information quantity. Critical to this is the use of dynamic profile updates which propagate back through the network through formal and informal social interactions. This supports changes to situa- tional relevance judgments and so allows the network to ‘self-tune’.

These findings lead to design requirements, including that systems should support rapid assessment of information items against an individual’s interests; that it should be possible to organise informa- tion for different subsequent uses; and that there should be back- propagation from information consumers to providers, to tune the understanding of their information needs.

It is observe in this research that the major problem confronting current awareness service and satisfaction of information needs of researchers in the library of the federal college of forestry technology, Ibadan is that most researchers are lacking adequate information and this usually lead to negative effect on their research work.
A case study method was adopted using questionnaires as the ma- jor instrument for data collection. Tables and percentage are used for data presentation thereby enabling easy discussion and interpre- tation of collected data. At the end of the gathering exercise, the research reveals that although information resources are properly put in place for researchers but the level of current awareness service is not enough. Some researchers are facing some difficulties in making use of the library materials.
Be that as it may, appropriate recommendations were made, which include, current awareness service must be propagated in the library and the library should try and acquire online facilities via the inter- net.