Catalogue Use by Science Students in the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

This study investigates catalogue use by science students of the University of Ilorin. A questionnaire was randomly distributed to 500 users in the 2004/2005 session; 415 questionnaires were completed and form the basis of this study. The study reveals that a preponderance of the respondents (90.1%) use the library catalogue to access the library stock; three-quarters (74%) claim to know how to use both the card catalogues and the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC). The users of the OPAC represented a small portion with 33 respondents (7.9%). The study also showed that many respondents (192 or 46.3%) prefer the Subject Catalogue, one-fourth (111 or 26.7%) prefers the Author/Title and about a fifth (88 or 21.2%) prefers a combination of Author/Title and Subject Catalogues. The use of library catalogues increases as the respondents' progress in their academic career. This paper concludes that effective library use education based on subject disciplines would be more beneficial to the users.