Comparative study of school libraries’ resources and services in public and private secondary schools in Imo State, Nigeria

The purpose of this study was to assess the provision of library resources and services in public and private secondary schools in Owerri Municipality in Imo State of Nigeria.The survey research design was used.The population of the study was the entire 38,042 students in twenty-two ( 22) public and private secondary schools in Owerri Municipality.The sample size was 650 which is 5% of the 13,802 students in the six (6) secondary schools selected for this study.The instrument was validated and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach Alpha reliability technique, which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.72.Three (3) research questions were answered, while corresponding number of hypotheses were tested using t-test statistical technique at 0.05% level of significance.Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 25 software to calculate the mean, standard deviation, and testing of hypotheses.The findings revealed that although libraries in public and private secondary schools in Owerri Municipality, Imo State of Nigeria, provided resources and services, the level of dissatisfaction by patrons was higher in public secondary schools.The hypotheses tested revealed that library resources and services in private secondary schools are significantly greater than the criterion mean score of 2.5 while those of public secondary schools were mostly lower than the criterion mean score.Based on these findings, the following recommendations were made: provision of relevant print and non-book information resources, provision of efficient library services, recruitment of adequate number of competent staff, provision of basic working tools and facilities, provision of comfortable accommodation for library services and adequate funding of libraries in secondary schools.