Use of computers and the Internet in four libraries by students of higher learning institutions (UNAM and Polytechnic) for their educational support

Abstract

Abstract provided by author:

Information Technology (IT) plays a very crucial role in the socio-economic development of many countries in the world today. In Namibia many organizations such as SchoolNet, Bridges. Org; and the Rossing Foundation in addition to institutional libraries and resource centers such as the University of Namibia (UNAM) Library, the Polytechnic library and other independent resource centers like the American Cultural Center (ACC) and the British Council (BC) recognize the importance of Information Technology (IT). Fundamental to achieving their objectives is providing accessibility to information stored whether manually or electronically. But despite all these efforts, it seems, not enough research has been done to see how information is used let alone to see if and how effectively their computer stock is used to support education amongst students

This research therefore, was primarily concerned with finding out, various computer uses; computer literacy levels; student awareness in terms of IT benefits and various problems encountered by students and various aspects attributed as hindrances to IT adoption. The study was conducted in the above four mentioned library, information and resource centers using the availability sampling method in which 100 questionnaires were used to analyze, interpret and draw conclusions from. From the findings, it was concluded that even though issues of lack of computers and Internet facilities have been eased, there are issues of inefficiency concerning the Internet and students are generally dissatisfied with the condition of computers at their respective institutions. On the positive side, computer literacy levels were found to be above average and that students do use computers and the Internet for their educational support. It was also found that students are quite aware of the usefulness of the Internet for their studies