Perceived Effects of Mutilation of Material Resources on the Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students in University Libraries in Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the perceived effects of mutilation of material resources on academic performance of undergraduate students' in university libraries in Abuja. The study adopted a survey research design. The population of the study comprises 5,464 library registered undergraduates in Universities in Abuja. A sample size of 420 library registered undergraduate students in three universities was selected using proportionate stratified random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire validated by experts. Data were collected and analyzed using Means and Standard Deviation to answer the research questions and Chi-Square statistic to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that, textbooks and journals mutilation significantly affect academic performance of undergraduates in universities in Abuja negatively. The study concluded that, mutilation of library resources is a serious problem ravaging universities libraries in Abuja and has had a negative effect on undergraduates' academic performance. Recommendation were made that, University libraries should embark on awareness programmes to educate users who are ignorant of the negative effects of mutilation of library resources to desist from such acts as it lowers their academic performance, mutilators should be subjected to heavy and well defined penalties such as withdrawal of library card to serve as deterrent to other users and libraries should adopt the use of new technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to solve some of the problems caused by mutilation of library resources among others.