Nigerian University Academics and Institutional repository: A case study of University of Jos, faculty of Natural Sciences lecturers

This research was designed to evaluate the Lecturers of University of Jos knowledge on Institutional Repository, awareness of existence of University of Jos Institutional Repository, willingness to submit personal research works to the Institutional Repository and challenges faced, using the lecturers of Faculty of Natural Sciences as a focal population. The entire population of 148 academic staff members in the faculty was adopted for the research. Descriptive survey was the research design used for the study. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaire and interview. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages and cross- tabulations were used to analyze the data generated. The findings of the research revealed among others that the majority of the lecturers did not have any idea of what Open Access Institutional Repository means and also not aware of the existence of the University of Jos Institutional Repository. Nevertheless, most of the lecturers appeared undecided on willingness to submit personal research works to the university’s Institutional Repository. Hence, most of the lecturers indicated unawareness of the existence the university’s Institutional Repository as their major reason for not participating in the development of the Institutional Repository. It was therefore, recommended among others that the University’s Management through the Directorate of ICT unit in association with the University’s Library should continue to organize conferences, capacity building workshops and seminars to educate the lecturers on the relevance of Institutional Repository to the academic community. In this way, their knowledge on Open Access Institutional Repository will be enriched and they will then be willing to contribute to the development of institutional repository in the university

Patterns Of Newspaper Collection Usage: A Case Study Of University Of Jos Library

This research was designed to study the patterns of newspaper usage in University of Jos Library. The status of the newspaper users; their purpose(s) for consulting the newspapers; frequency of the newspaper use; preferred newspaper edition; level of newspaper satisfaction; and challenges they faced in newspaper usage in the library were elucidated. The study covered 140 newspaper readers in University of Jos library. The survey method was used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts and percentages were used to analyze data. The findings revealed that the majority of the newspaper readers in the library were students who came to consult the library newspapers for current events in the country. The findings further revealed that most of the newspaper readers visited the library at least thrice a week and they mostly preferred reading the new editions of the newspapers. However, they complained among others that poor preservation of the old editions of the newspapers; unavailability of new editions of the newspapers; and need for more newspaper titles, were some of the major challenges they faced in the newspaper usage in the library. Recommendations were made on how to improve the situation. Keywords: Newspaper Collection, Patterns of Use, University of Jos Library.The Information Technologist Vol. 5 (2) 2008: pp. 126-13

Species of fungi associated with skin diseases of different age groups in plateau state, Nigeria

A survey was carried out on the species of fungi associated with skin diseases of thirty subjects of different age groups in Plateau State, Nigeria. The age groups included 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 years, accounting for 27%, 38%, 23%, 8% and 4% of total number of individuals with fungal infections respectively. The skin diseases involved included ringworms, dermatitis, burns, impetigo and boils. The fungal isolates included Microsporium canis, M. audouinii, M. ferrugineum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, T. megninii and Aspergillus niger, with frequencies of occurrence in the skin lesions being 80%, 60%, 40%, 60%, 60% and 20% respectively. The implications of the results are discussed. Keywords: fungi, skin disease, age groups, Plateau State African Journal of Clinical and Experimental Microbiology Vol. 6 (3) 2005: 188-19