Access to information for sustainable development in the digital age: Librarians’ perspectives in two Nigerian universities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of librarians on access to Information for Sustainable Development in Enugu State, Nigeria in the Digital Age. Access to information is said to play a major role in the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).In Nigeria, access to information is increasing and yet does not seem to be making real impact towards the realization of the SDGs. Four research questions were formulated to guide the study and descriptive survey design was adopted. The area of study was Enugu State. The population of the study comprised all 93 librarians from the University of Nigeria Nsukka and Enugu State University of Science and Technology. The instrument for data collection included a combination of oral interview and a structured questionnaire made up of four clusters and 76 items on a 4-point scale of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD). All 93 librarians were sampled using the questionnaire and oral interviews were conducted with librarians at the management level. Of the 93 questionnaires distributed, 72 useful copies were received and analyzed. The findings revealed that librarians access information on Sustainable Development Goals highly because of available resources and infrastructure. Responses to the oral interviews showed that information facilities are not available in many urban and rural communities where most citizens reside. A number of challenges were identified, including poor information structure, poor electricity supply and Internet connectivity, inadequate publicity of government programs on SDGs and non-involvement of people in key decision making. Government should improve the information architecture to widen access to information on SDGs through partnering with the libraries, increase publicity of accurate and relevant information, and involve citizens in the decision-making process.