Faculty Awareness and Utilization of the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library for Teaching and Research: A Study of Academic Staff in the University of Calabar, Nigeria

This study reports on a survey conducted to explore the awareness and extent of utilization of The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) database resources by academic staff at the faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria. Structured Questionnaire was designed and used for data collection. Eighty copies of the questionnaire were randomly distributed to respondents in their offices; 60 copies of these were retrieved and used for data analysis (with 75.0% response rate). The findings of the study indicate that although vast majority (88.3%) of academic staff in the faculty of Agriculture are aware of TEEAL database resources, their utilization is rather low (46.7%) in teaching and research, the frequency of usage is equally low, as most (46.7%) respondents use these databases “occasionally”. From the findings of the study, most respondents used TEEAL abstracts for research and publication (80.0%), for better research output (53.3%) for insights to various topics for lectures (50.0%) and keep abreast with current trends in the field of study (50.0%). Major factors that impede awareness and utilization of TEEAL databases by academic staff of the faculty of Agriculture, University of Calabar, Nigeria include lack of awareness of the available databases by the university library, lack of access to TEEAL databases in the University library, lack of time to spend in searching TEEAL databases in the Library and inadequate information skills to use TEEAL, and improper orientation on the use.