The purpose of this study is to investigate the collection development practices of electronic
resources at the University of Namibia (UNAM) library and its constituent branches.
Collection development is one of the critical activities of any library management process;
therefore, the goal of collection development in university libraries is to effectively provide
relevant and up-to-date information resources. The main aims of the study were: to explore
the collection development procedures and policies for electronic resources at the UNAM
library; to investigate the factors that influence the collection development of information
resources; to assess the extent which teaching staff and subject librarians are involved in
collection development at the UNAM library; to discover the barriers to effective collection
development of electronic resources at the UNAM library; and to determine the influence of
the UNAM library budget allocation on the collection development of electronic resources.
The population of the study comprised of 291 teaching staff from all eight faculties of
UNAM. A total of 149 faculty members responded to the survey, which gave a response rate
of 51.2%, while a total number of 16 library staff were interviewed. The study employed a
quantitative approach, and the qualitative approach was applied on the part of the library
staff. For quantitative data collection, the study used a self-administered questionnaire, while
for qualitative data, the study used an interview schedule with library staff. The data from the
interviews were used to complement the data from the survey. Quantitative data were
analysed using SPSS, while the qualitative data were analysed using thematic content
analysis. The study revealed that not all faculty members are aware of the guideline,
procedure, and policies on the collection development activities. Eighty one percent (81%) of
the respondents are aware of the importance of their role in selecting library materials, 72%
are aware of acquiring books, and 67% are aware of the budget allocated to their faculty. The
majority totaling 94% of the faculty members are not aware of weeding or disposal of library
books, followed by 83% who are not aware of collection evaluation, and 81% are not aware
of the collection development policy in place at the UNAM library. From the data collected,
the study found that a majority (67%) of faculty members are aware of ICTs used in
collection development activities. Even though the majority of faculty members are aware of
ICTs used in collection development activities, (45%) faculty members are not aware that
ICTs can be used in collection development. The major challenge facing the UNAM library
is the absence of the collection development policy, which makes it difficult for the teaching
staff, students, and library staff to understand all the issues related to the collection
development of electronic resources in the library. Another challenge is the inadequacy of
funds to cater for the increasing costs of electronic resources in various subject fields. / Information Science / M. A. (Information Science)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/25574 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Ashilungu, Maria |
| Contributors | Onyancha, O. B. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | 1 online resource (xii, 168 leaves) : color illustrations |
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