ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to examine reference service delivery and students' satisfaction of Ahia state university library. The study was guided with four research questions and one hypothesis formulated and tested at 0. 05 level of significance. The study adopted descriptive survey research design with a population of 3128 which comprises 1508 male and 1620 female students. The sample used for the study was simple random sampling, using 3/3 respondents comprising 151 male and 162/ema/e. The instrument for data collection which was designed by the researcher was questionnaire structured in two sections with 55 items. 313 questionnaires were distributed to elicit information from respondents and 30/ representing 96% of return rate was retrieved completely filled and used for data analyses. In analyzing the data, mean and standard deviation was used while the null hypothesis was tested using t-test statistics. The findings revealed that reference services needed by students were made available and students were satisfied with some of the service3 even though they used the reference services to an extent. The study farther revealed that the items listed as reasons for non-satisfaction of reference service delivery were all agreed by the students, showing that reference service delivery needs to be improved to give the students the satisfaction they need. From the study, it was concluded that the satisfaction of students for the service delivery depends on the quality and quantity of information services provided by university library. Based on the findings, it is recommended that university libraries should acquire current and relevant reference information and as well embrace the new technology that will help in improving the reference service delivery to their students as this will also attract students in the use of reference services provided.

KEYWORDS: Reference service, service delivery, students, satisfaction, university library