Utilization and challenges of electronic library services in a Nigerian Law Library

The study examined the current state of electronic library services in the law library of the Akwa Ibom State High Court.The research was guided by four objectives and utilized a descriptive research design.The population of the study consisted of 35 registered users of the law library, with a census sampling technique employed due to the manageable population size.Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as means, and standard deviation.The findings revealed that legal professionals frequently utilized services such as online research guides, electronic reference services, legal forms, and digital archives.However, services like online legal journals, publications, and e-books were less frequently used.Key challenges identified included high subscription costs, inadequate digital literacy among users, poor internet connectivity-especially in rural areas-limited awareness of available services, and a lack of Nigerian-specific legal resources in digital formats.The study, among others, recommends that law libraries should invest in reliable, high-speed internet infrastructure to facilitate seamless access to electronic resources; efforts should be made to negotiate lower costs for subscriptions to legal databases.