Strategies for the Effective Utilisation of the School Library Resources by Junior Secondary Schools in Ilesa West Local Government Education Authority, Ilesa in Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Education can be viewed as an inviolable concept needed to make an individual develop culturally, morally, technologically, religiously, economically and politically. School libraries are considered as learning laboratories whose equipment include all instructional materials required for educational purposes and development. These instructional materials should be managed with the assistance of well-trained school librarians and other library staff. School librarians are as well saddled with the responsibility of educating students and assisting them to develop the ability of solving problems associated with their Information needs. This paper focuses on examining the strategies for the effective utilisation of the school library resources by Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) in Ilesa West Local Government Education Authority (LGEA), Ilesa, Osun State. The schools in this Local Government Area had a total population of 10,210 students. Purposive sampling method was used where only seven (7) JSS were purposively selected for the study out of the ten (10) JSS. Again, purposive sampling technique was used to determine the class and number of students to be used in each of the sampled schools thus eliminating classes with no resources. The total number of JSS3 students stood at 674. Questionnaires were designed for both students and staff to collect pertinent data.