Perceptions and use of big data analytics for information management among librarians in selected university libraries in Kwara state, Nigeria

The advent of big data analytics in universities libraries information management offers enormous potential as well as formidable obstacles. This study therefore examined perceptions and use of big data analytics for information management among librarians in selected universities libraries in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study adopts cross-sectional research design and questionnaire was adopted for data collection. Using purposive sampling technique, the sample size of the study is forty-eight (48). The results revealed that big data analytics can be used in planning, organising, and structuring information management. Findings showed that more than half of the librarians lowly used QlikView to process large datasets and Splunk platform for machine data analysis for information management. The results indicated that Tableau, Apache Spark, SAS Visual Analytic, and Apache Hadoop were moderately used for information management. Results demonstrated that BDA are used to analyse user data and research data. Results showed that data quality issues, complex data, epileptic power supply and diversity data types are challenges associated with usage of big data analytic. The study provides insights into how big data analytics is perceived and utilised by librarians in university libraries, while addressing unique challenges such as local technological limitations and specific usage patterns of big data tools. The study highlights a functional perspective of big data analytics, which demonstrates its practical applications in organising, structuring, and improving the quality of information handled by university libraries.