Utilisation of Institutional Repositories for Searching Information Sources, Self-Archiving and Preservation of Research Publications in Selected Nigerian Universities

Abstract

This study surveyed the use of institutional repositories (IRs) for searching information resources, self-archiving and preservation of research publications of academics in five Nigerian universities. The descriptive survey research method was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 491 academics and five repository librarians from the five universities that have their IR in Open DOAR. Questionnaire and interview were used for data collection. Data collected from the questionnaire were analysed using percentages. The findings showed that the most archived documents were journal articles. The information contents were utilised to a large extent; the submission of content for archiving on IR was very low; journal articles, conference/ seminar papers were the materials mostly submitted for archiving in IR. The implication of the study is that since the academics utilise the content of IR to a large extent but the rate of their submission is very low, there is need for sensitisation and creating awareness on the importance and use of IR.