Evaluation of the Use of Electronic Resources by Agricultural Research Scientist In Ghana: A Study of the Food Research Institute and Animal Research Institute

Abstract

The study evaluated the use of e-resources among agricultural research scientist in Ghana. Data was collected from 48 (70.6%) out of 68 scientists at the Food Research (FRI) and Animal Research (ARI) Institutes of the of the council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CRIS), Ghana. The results showed a very high (97.9%) level of awareness and use of e-resources among the research scientist whose preferred places of accessing e-resources were their offices and the library (60%). The scientist were most satisfied with the full text databases (73.0%) and e-journal (81.3%) but reported problems of slow access speed (58.3%), high subscription fees and frequent power outages. There was no significant difference in access to and use of e-resources between the scientist from ARI and FRI (P=0.05). The study recommended that budgetary allocation for e-resources facilities in agricultural libraries should be improved since scientist are known to have preference for electronic than print resources.