ABSTRACT

The study focuses on staff satisfaction with the use of Open Source Software in University Libraries in the South-South Nigeria. Eight research questions were answered while eight null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study is 203 comprising all library staff in the university libraries in South-South Nigeria and census sampling technique was adopted for this study. The instrument for data collection was Open Source Software for Library Staff Use and Satisfaction Questionnaire (OSSLSUSQ) developed by the researcher. The instrument was validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was achieved using test retest and the data collected were analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.84. The data for the study were collected by the researcher and two research assistants. Two hundred and three copies of the questionnaire were distributed to 203 respondents but 195 copies were retrieved representing 96.1% return rate. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions. The hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. It was found from the study that there were high use of the administrative module, high use of the cataloguing module and high use ofthe circulation modules of OSS by university library staff. Also, high satisfaction with the use of administrative module, high satisfaction with the use of cataloguing module and high satisfaction with the use of circulation module of OSS in university libraries in South-south Nigeria. It was also .found that there are factors militating against the use of OSS in university libraries which includes: network and server problem, lack oftraining and retraining ofstaff and constant power failure. And the strategies recommended for enhancing the use of OSS in university libraries in South-south Nigeria based on the findings includes but not limited to: provision of enough funds for the maintenance of infrastructure, provision of standby power generator, training and retraining ofstaff and provision of effective internet facilities.