Information needs versus Information services: Assessing predictors of Secondary School Students with Visual Impairment Satisfaction at School Library Media Centres in South-Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the information needs versus Information services by assessing predictors of Secondary School Students with Visual Impairment Satisfaction at School Library Media Centres in South-Eastern Nigeria. This research embraced a positivist research paradigm in which quantitative research method was used to gather statistical data and generalizing it across various groups of respondents in order to elucidate a certain phenomenon.The population of the study is 95 consisting of 84 students with visual impairment enrolled in the secondary schools selected for the study and 11 SLMC personnel who are responsible for services to the students with visual impairment.The study revealed the following: (i) that the major information needs of the students with visual impairment focused on information needed to pass examinations and information to complete class assignments; (ii) the deficiency of majority of the library services for students with visual impairment in the SLMCs was confirmed; (iii) the opinion of students’ and personnel on the paucity of library services tallies; (iv) media-formats were indicated as either not readily available or not available; (v) there is no high level accessibility to school library resources; (vi) it was proven that a relative influence of information needs and accessibility exist in the library on user- satisfaction of the students with visual impairment; (vii) library services and media-format did not have significant influence on user-satisfaction; (viii) that user-satisfaction, information needs, library services, accessibility and media-format are positively related to library use among the students with visual impairment. Recommendations was made concerning issues and challenges on provision of special rescue votes for acquisition and internal production of media-formats in their school library media resource centres