This study investigated the information behaviour of Nigerian undergraduates
in the world of Web 2.0 at the Federal University of Petroleum Resources,
Nigeria. The study is drawn from a doctoral thesis that used a mixed methods
approach. The population and sample of the study was a total of 803
undergraduate students. Three research questions which focused on the
information needs, information resources and infrastructure, and barriers to
information seeking were answered using a questionnaire. The study revealed
that students need information both for academic purposes and in their
everyday life experiences. The data provide support for the convenience school
of thought. It seems that time constraints and the inconvenience of traditional
sources might be critical factors in the choices that students make in their
information seeking. The barriers which students experience are both physical
and intellectual. The physical barriers relate to technical issues such as the
system freezing, server down time, access speed, and erratic power supply. The
intellectual barriers concern their inability to choose appropriate subject
headings, keywords, formulating search strategies, and choosing appropriate
databases
