EXTENT OF AWARENESS AND ADOPTION OF UNESCO CONSERVATION GUIDELINES BY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MANAGEMENT AND STAFF IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Library And Information Science

CONTRIBUTORS:

Chima-James Ngozi
Nwosu O. C.

ABSTRACT:

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2000 designed guidelines for carrying out conservation practices to ensure that significant library materials, published and unpublished, in all formats, will be conserved in accessible form. These guidelines are expected to be used by the library Management and Library staff for conservation practices. Therefore, this study was carried out to determine the extent of awareness and adoption of UNESCO Conservation Guidelines among the library management and staff in the South-Eastern Nigerian universities. Eight research questions guided the study while eight hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The research design that was adopted for this study is the survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 704 university library workers, made up of 81 university library management and 623 Library staff. The instrument that was used to collect data for the study was questionnaire. The statistical tests used to analyze data or answer research questions was summated score while the hypotheses were tested using t-test. The result of the study indicated that few of the library management 20(43.5%) are aware of preservation practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to a very high extent while 20(43.5%) of the library management are aware of them to high extent.Only 9(19.6%) of the library management are aware of restoration practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to a very high extent while 27(58.7%) of the library management are aware of them to high extent.Most of the library staff 178(66.0%) are aware of preservation practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to a moderate extent. Most of the library staff 171(63.3%) are aware of restoration practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to a moderate extent. Few of the library management 24(52.2%) adopt preservation practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to a very high extent while 16(34.8%) of the library management adopt them to high extent. Only 9(19.6%) of the library management adopt of restoration practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to very high extent while 27(58.7%) of the library management adopt them to high extent. Few of the library staff 129(47.8%) adopt preservation practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to moderate extent while 99(36.6) of the library staff adopt them to high extent.Most of the library staff 153(56.7%) adopt restoration practices in the UNESCO conservation guidelines to moderate extent.
Based on the findings, it was recommended that the government should conduct seminars and workshops for library managers and staff on UNESCO conservation guidelines for them to be acquainted with skills to use the Guidelines. The university should provide an enabling environment for library managers and Staff to using the UNESCO Conservation Guidelines. There should be a recruit of experts for subsequent trainings in the library on the use of UNESCO Guidelines to enable them train staff on the use of the Guidelines and there should be adequate funding of library by the federal government for staff improvement.

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