ABSTRACT

The study examined public relations and utilization of information resources in university libraries in Imo State. The study adopted correlation research design. Four research questions and four null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The study was carried out in Federal University of Technology, Owerri and Imo State University, Owerri. A questionnaire captioned ‘Public Relations and Utilization of Information Resources Questionnaire (PRUIRQ)’ was used for data collection. The population comprised 9414 registered undergraduate students of the two university libraries. Proportionate sampling technique was adopted to select 377 undergraduate students for the study. The data were analyzed using Pearson (r) statistic while the null hypotheses were tested using t-test statistical technique. The research findings showed that there is a moderate, positive and significant relationship between current awareness services provided in the public university libraries in Imo State and the utilization of the information resources. It was also found that the use of library exhibitions and user education has contributed to students’ effective utilization of the information resources in Federal University of Technology, Owerri library and Imo State University library respectively. It was however, recommended that library exhibition method which is not being used in the two university libraries be adopted as another promotional strategy to enhance utilization. It was also recommended that the university libraries should step up the provision of telephone and e-mail reference services to compliment other methods of reference services for enhanced utilization of information resources.