Digital Library Services and Users’ Patronage in Federal Polytechnic Libraries in South-South Nigeria

This study investigated digital library services and users patronage in federal polytechnic libraries in South-South, Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 4,725 registered library users in four federal Polytechnics in south-south, Nigeria, covering the 2023/2024 academic session. A sample size of 381 subjects was drawn using Krejcie and Morgan sampling size table while simple random sampling was used to select 381 respondents for the study. A researcher-developed questionnaire titled “Digital Library Services and Users Patronage Questionnaire (DLSUPQ)†was used for data collection. The instrument was face validated by experts. Cronbach Alpha Statistics was used to ascertain the reliability of the instrument. This produced the reliability coefficient of .877 that attested the reliability of the instrument. The instrument was administered by the researchers with the help of five research assistants, each from the Polytechnic under investigation. 376 successfully completed copies of the questionnaire were retrieved representing 98.7% return rate. This was used for data analysis. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) statistical package was used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The result of the analysis revealed a significant relationship between the variables under study. The result showed that, web-based services and digital reference (DR) services have a significant relationship with users patronage in federal Polytechnic libraries in South-South, Nigeria.