Fee-based Services as Source of Funding for Public University Libraries in Ghana - A Survey

ABSTRACT Academic libraries have a crucial role to play in the achievement of the goals of their parent institutions. However, public universities in Ghana have generally not been financing their libraries to the quantum that has been recommended by the Universities Rationalization Committee in Ghana. Public university libraries have experienced dwindling budgetary allocations which hover around 3% of the total universities’ annual budget. Responses received from a survey on sale of some aspect of their services as a possible source of additional income indicated that it exists only in one of the university libraries. Respondents posited that it is a potential source of additional funding to all three public university libraries - Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana and University of Cape Coast - involved in the survey. They however, indicated that the libraries’ mandate is not to dabble in sale of information. A policy direction on this subject is recommended for the libraries to take advantage of selling some aspects of services as good potential source of funding to help them solve their financial crisis

Health Information Behaviour of Graduate Students on the Internet: Sources, Trust and Reliability of Information

The study sought to investigate the health information behaviour of graduate students on the internet. A quantitative method using a cross-sectional survey was used to solicit information from 256 graduate students studying courses related to health in the Arts, Social, and applied Sciences. The results showed that most of the respondents preferred the Internet because it is timely, fast and provides information from different sources simultaneously. The type(s) of health information mostly sought for were general information on healthy lifestyle, specific disease or treatment, side effects of medications, new development in the medical field among others. Majority (90.9 %) of the respondents trusted the health information on the Internet but most (56.6 %) did not verify the information obtained online with medical practitioners although they had some forms of concern. The findings offer health practitioners knowledge about university students’ health information seeking behaviour on the Internet in relation to other sources of health information

ENHANCING INFORMATION LITERACY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES THROUGH POLICY FRAMEWORKS

The study sought to explore the role policies play in the delivery of information literacy in public university libraries. Using a semi-structured interview, the study sought to elicit the views of librarians in Ghana’s top-most universities on their knowledge about instructional services and the availability of policy frameworks that guide the delivery of information literacy in academic libraries. It was revealed that different models of information literacy exist in academic libraries but librarians lacked a definite policy framework to prosecute the information literacy agenda. The study fills the gap in the available literature on the role policy plays in information literacy, especially in developing countries. Universities and other higher education institutions will find the results of this study useful in considering policies to guide the delivery of information literacy in their libraries