Effectiveness and adequacy of digital reference services provided among librarians in selected federal university libraries in Northern Nigeria

The research examines the effectiveness and adequacy of digital reference services provided by librarians in selected federal university libraries in Northern Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted. The population comprised 394 librarians in the twenty (20) selected federal university libraries. The entire population was used as the number of librarians was small and manageable. The questionnaire was used for data collection. A total of 394 copies of the questionnaire were distributed, of which 305 were returned, representing a response rate of 77.4%. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that e-mail reference services were most widely provided for digital reference services, representing 195 (63.9%), with an overall effectiveness score of 3.17; that the most widely used ICT tool to interact with the users was WhatsApp groups, representing 178(58.4%), while the adequacy of the services was found with an overall mean of 3.07. The study concluded that although librarians in university libraries provide a variety of digital reference services as well as information and communication tools, the effectiveness and adequacy were confirmed by the analysis of the study, showing a generally favourable opinion of their effectiveness and impact. It was recommended that the management of the federal university libraries should provide more technological infrastructure for effective digital reference services to the users. Also, adequate information and communication technology platforms should be created for effective and efficient digital reference services.