Information Needs and Information Seeking Behaviour of Commercial Motorcycle Operators in Benue State, Nigeria

The study investigated information needs and information seeking behaviour of commercial motorcycle operators in Benue State, Nigeria. Five objectives with corresponding research questions guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population for the study comprises of 38128 commercial motorcycle operators in Benue State. The sample size for the study was 396 commercial motorcycle operators who were selected using proportionate stratified and convenience sampling techniques. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Information Needs and Information Seeking Behaviour of Commercial Motorcycle Operators’ Questionnaire (INISBCMOQ) which was validated by experts. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha method and a reliability coefficient of 0.83 was obtained. The data collected for the study was analyzed using Frequency Counts and Percentages. The findings of the study revealed that, CMOs need information on how to own a motorcycle, prices of motorcycle, how to avoid accidents, more lucrative routes, safe routes, where to get best spare parts and traffics regulations among others. The findings also revealed the information sources of CMOs to include customers, consulting friends, listening to radio, watching and listening to television and visiting drinking joints/ beer parlours. Further, the findings revealed the difficulties encountered by CMOs in the course of seeking for information to include: inability to read, inability to use library catalogue, irregular power supply, inability to access newspaper/ magazines and lack of knowledge of computer/ internet use. The study concluded that commercial motorcycle operators just like any other category of people have a variety of information needs, ranging from general information to specific information about their commercial activities. It was recommended that, public Libraries in Nigeria should as a matter of urgency, embark on an aggressive library awareness campaign so that everybody including commercial motorcycle operators could use library resources like the internet and published materials as their source for reliable information and libraries and information centres should also see everybody as a potential information user and as such package information services for the less educated populace such as commercial motorcycle operators in a language they will understand.