Abstract:
This study assessed issues affecting awareness and use of electronic
information resources by first year (level 100) students. The study adopted
survey approach. The sampling method adopted for the purpose of this study
was simple random sampling techniques. The sampled respondents were drawn
from the total population of 1,780 level 100 students at the Koforidua
Technical University, Electronic Resource Library. 10% of the population was
drawn as the sample size. A structured questionnaire was developed and
administered to elicit information from the respondents. A total of 178 copies
of the questionnaire were strictly administered to the students with all duly
answered and retrieved. Data collected were analysed using simple descriptive
statistics. The study revealed that students’ awareness about the availability of
academic electronic resources and databases was very low and that students
primarily used search engines particularly Google and Yahoo as search tools.
The study also revealed constraints that negatively affect students’ successful
utilisation of e-resources. The result also showed that students’ utilisation of the
electronic information resources was low. Based on the findings, the study
proposes different strategies that should be put in place by stakeholders to
address the challenges affecting students’ utilisation of electronic information
resources.
