Electronic journals in Nigerianuniversity libraries: the presentsituation and future possibilities

Richard Olorunsola and Akinniyi A. AdelekeRedeemer’s University Library, Redemption City, Nigeria

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on research that examined the issues of e-journalsubscription, subscription models and the future of print version of journals in Nigerian universities.

Design/methodology/approach – A survey study was used to collect data from the selected30 universities that covered the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The questionnaire contained questionsthat are pertinent to the issues being investigated. The 22 responses (73.3 percent) received wereprocessed, analyzed and results presented.

Findings – The study reveals that Nigerian universities subscribe to e-journals, i.e. full-text journals.They employ acceptable models for subscriptions, however, they use consortium more than any othermodel. Most libraries want to retain print format.

Research limitations/implications – While the study is limited to 22 university libraries, it hasapplications to similar universities across Nigeria, be they public or private.

Practical implications – This research provides information on the status of subscription toe-journals in Nigerian libraries methods, and policy issues. The data and findings may help provideways to manage e-journals better in Nigerian libraries to serve user needs.

Originality/value – At the time of the completion of this study no such work had been done beforein Nigeria.

Keywords Academic libraries, Electronic journals, Nigeria, University libraries, Online journals

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionIn the developed countries, debate over the future of both print and electronic journals(e-journals), and whether e-journals will soon replace print, started over a decade ago.In Nigeria, despite the fact that e-journals are still evolving in nature, there have been anumber of issues raised in professional fora on their usage and advantages on libraries.There is no doubt about the fact that e-journals have proliferated in most academicdisciplines, especially in the fields of science and technology (Tobia et al., 2001).As more publishers are making their journals available in electronic form, academiclibraries world over have continued to take advantage of this medium of publishing bysubscribing to a number of electronic databases pertinent to the interest of theirinstitutions.

According to Odlyzko (1995), the development of the e-journal is the inevitableoutcome of two forces. One is the technology pull, more and more tools are becomingavailable for scholars to run the publishing business by themselves. The second forceis an economic push caused by the exponential growth in scholarly literature.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0024-2535.htm

This research was funded by the Research Grant Committee, Redeemer’s University(2009/2010 session).

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Received 21 October 2010Reviewed 10 December 2010Revised 21 January 2011Accepted 22 January 2011

Library ReviewVol. 60 No. 7, 2011pp. 588-598q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0024-2535DOI 10.1108/00242531111153605

Given the proliferation of e-journals, academic libraries in this part of the world shouldstart to think of how to handle certain problems that are found with the use ofe-journals. As libraries are making commitment to developing an e-journal collection,they must also develop a collection development philosophy for e-journals,subscriptions method, policy decisions and related issues among others.

The purpose of this study is to examine the management of e-journals in Nigerianuniversities in order to ascertain the following:

. the status of subscriptions and use of e-journals in Nigerian university libraries;

. the role of consortium in subscription to e-journals; and

. the policy of libraries on print and e-journal subscriptions.

Literature reviewVarious studies have addressed the reasons for acquiring e-journals in academiclibraries. Chu (2000) surveyed 95 major academic libraries in the USA to examine howlibrarians were responding to e-journals. The author reported that the top five librariescited reasons for acquiring e-journals as:

(1) ability to provide remote access;

(2) simultaneous use by more than one user;

(3) timely access;

(4) searching capabilities not found with print journals; and

(5) accommodation of such unique features as links to related items.

From this study, it is obvious that libraries benefit from e-journals. The study revealedalso that e-journals provide users faster, more convenient 24-hour desktop access fromhome or campus.

Ohio State University (OSU) conducted a user survey of e-journals during the year1998-2000 (Rogers, 2001). The survey showed that there was significant progress in theacceptance and usage of e-journals at OSU; however, some inhibiting factors thatbothered on management issues were identified. Bar-Ilan et al. (2003) centered hisstudy on academic staff use of electronic resources (e-resources), acceptance, perceivedimportance and satisfaction with the resources. The result revealed an overwhelmingacceptance of the e-resources. The import of these studies is that to justify continuedsubscription to e-journals, libraries require faculty and students usage study.

One of the largest projects conducted in the past on this subject was the Stanforde-journal study (eJUSt, 2002), a two-year project funded by the Mellon Foundation in2000. The study focused on the impact of e-journals on research quality and productivityas well as attitudes towards online usage. The findings of the survey showed that over75 percent of the respondents preferred e-journals to their printed counterparts. Thisproject was initiated to determine the viability of the e-journal format. The study hasproved scholars’ readiness to accept the e-journals as a substitute for print.

Contributing to e-journal usage in university libraries, Schuling (2006) examinedreaders’ present conditions, difficulties and requirements of using e-resources. In doingso, the author investigated all teachers and students on campus. The investigativestudy shows that users were satisfied with the e-resources of the university studied.The author asserts in the study that in recent years, e-resources have become

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the library’s important storage of a university library, and the fund purchasede-resources also increased quickly, year after year.

Kickuk (2010) notes that “many academic library staff express feelings of beingoverwhelmed or frustrated by the rapid growth and violability associated withelectronic collection and their impact on public and technical services”. This isconsequent upon the rate at which the library acquires e-resources. The authorundertook the study in order to analyze the growth of e-resources and the internal andexternal impacts. The implication of this study for academic libraries is that the growthof e-resources needs to be properly managed if users must enjoy the full potential offeredby the use of the resources.

The interest in academic library consortia has recently grown and this seems toindicate the necessity for collaboration among academic libraries, especially theincreasing costs of collection materials and e-resources. Consequently, most highereducation libraries now belong to a consortium. Maskell (2008) has this to say onconsortia:

Academic library consortia activity has become an integral part of how academic libraries areacquiring resources and providing services for their respective communities [. . .] as a whole,academic library consortia have come to assert increased bargaining power over publishers,much stronger bargaining power than individual libraries hold, providing libraries withconsiderable economic advantage.

Different authors have described consortia using different words, however, pointing toone direction. Helmer (2002) says it provides cartel buying power for members, Allenand Hishon (1998) see it as a means that allows libraries to reduce costs throughnegotiation of lower prices for acquisition, and Alberico (2002), Baker and Sanville(2000) put consortia activity as a direct response by academic libraries to challengecommercial publishers’ control of the scholarly publication market.

Maskell (2008) reported that university librarians described consortia as:. buying clubs;. a response to exponentially rising resource costs, particularly with respect to

serials;. a response to stagnant or minimally increasing library budgets; and. a way to push back at publishers with a stronger negotiating stance.

The opinion of Rogani (2007) on consortia is instructive. He says the potential amountof electronic content available to academic researchers is increasing tremendously, forthis reason, it is increasingly more important both to buy electronic access at cheapersolutions and to implore the knowledge of how users perceive the tools used by libraryconsortia in order to deliver information. The opinions and views of the variousauthors point to the fact that libraries can come together to form library consortia thatwill facilitate access to myriad of online resources that many institutions wouldotherwise not be able to afford on their own, as the consortia will be involved innegotiating good deals for their members.

There is now such a wide range of e-journals available to libraries that selectiondecisions should be made within an explicit collection development policy. Vogel (1996)warns that selection of e-resource outside the guidance of a collection developmentpolicy leads to haphazard unfocused groupings of resources that may or may not

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support the mission of the library. He gives the under listed as what the policy canachieve:

. will prevent the library from being driven by events or by individual enthusiasmand from purchasing a random set of resources which it cannot support; and

. will also help the library to head off the inevitable resistance to change from theinstitution.

The author suggests a separate collection policy for e-resources, and a policy that willaddress the following:

. information formats;

. technological implications both for the library and the institution; and

. management and staffing issues of supporting e-resources, and whatever is thepolicy it must be flexible, and will need to be interpreted sensitively within thecontext of local needs, priorities and culture.

Kennedy (1999) several years back has noted that the current growth rate of scholarlypublishing threatens the economic health of university library budgets and makes itincreasingly difficult for scholars to sort the worthwhile from the valueless. He alsoadds that libraries see the prices of scholarly journals rise by over 10 percent each year.At the same time, the fraction of university budgets devoted to libraries has beengenerally declining, e-resources is seen by most librarians as a partial answer to theproblem of their ability to acquire an increasingly limited share of the world’s literature.Breaks (1979) over two decades ago observed that electronic information resources(EIRs) raise a new set of financial issues for the library’s collection policy. The firstrequirement is to find the money to pay for new e-resources. It is acclaimed that EIRs aremore rather than less expensive than print resources, a library’s existing budgetingtraditions will, of course, have a significant effect on the extent of the provision of newEIRs. The author provides a UK example of the budget on e-resources as follows:

. UK academic libraries spend an average of a little more than 10 percent of theirmaterials budget on e-resources; and

. the collection management raised by e-resources consume far more than10 percent of a library’s staff resources.

The academic libraries at the time of writing the book were still essentially print based.However, full-text e-journal services that were at their infancy some years have gainedreputation in most libraries presently.

Many questions still surround the debate over whether to cancel a print journalwhen a library begins a subscription to the same journal in electronic format. No libraryintending to introduce e-journal subscription can “escape” the question, which is whyFrazer and Morgan (1999) state: “Virtually all libraries are facing questions aboutwhether or not electronic full-text access will facilitate elimination of printsubscriptions, and whether such electronic-for-print subscriptions will actually savemoney”. However, Tobia et al. (2001) raised three pertinent questions that requireanswers before taking a decision on cancellation of print journals:

(1) Does the e-journal have exactly the same content as its print counterpart, or aresuch components as “letters to the editors” missing?

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(2) Will an historical archive be available for the e-journal in ten or 20 years?

(3) Is the more recent issue of the journal electronically available and if not, howsignificant is the time lag between print and electronic publication?

Frazer and Morgan (1999) give other issues to consider before a decision on electronicfor print is taken:

. adequacy of hardware (PCs) in the library to support electronic access;

. sufficiency of hardware elsewhere on campus (offices, computer labs, etc.) tosupport electronic access;

. availability of, and campus support for, any required software (such as AdobeAcrobat reader);

. suitable solutions to various cataloguing and bibliographic control questionsrelating to e-journals;

. faculty input; and

. consideration of “areas of excellence” which the university may be pursuing.

Clearly, there are many things to consider when making cancellation decisionsregarding print journal version.

Ani and Ahiozu (2008) provide the framework for effective development of EIRs inNigeria. The article provides insight into the level of development and utilization ofEIRs in Nigerian universities.

Research studyThe authors elected to undertake a study to determine where Nigerian universitylibraries belong in the area of e-journal subscriptions. The goals, as outlined in theintroduction, were to determine the status of subscriptions to e-journals in selectedNigerian university libraries; what role consortium has played in subscription, and thepolicy of universities for the provision of print and e-journals. The survey wasundertaken to provide university library administrators with insight into the place ofe-journals in libraries and what could be done to reduce the problems facing the use ofe-journals. It is hoped that the data would be helpful in deciding whether Nigerianlibraries are doing well in the provision of e-journals to support learning, teaching andresearch. Second, the authors wanted to know whether e-journals might be betterhandled to serve user needs.

MethodologyThe survey method was used to collect data for this study. The survey covered30 selected universities in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, namely: North West,North Central, North East, South West, South East and South South.

A questionnaire was prepared because none was available in the literature about theissue. The questionnaire contains questions on profile of the university, and issues thatrelate to status of subscriptions, subscriptions model and university policy on printand e-journals. The questionnaire was mailed in January 2010 and by May 2010,22 responses had been received, giving a response rate of 73.3 percent. To complementthe information, visits were made to a number of universities to interview serialslibrarians to gain their insights into relevant issues.

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ResultsAs earlier reported, 22 (73.3 percent) libraries returned the surveys, out of these 22, nine(41 percent) are from federal universities. Seven (32 percent) and six (27 percent) arefrom state and private universities, respectively.

Demographical data, status of serials librarian and number of staffThe distribution of the age of the universities studied is as shown in Table I.Two-thirds of the universities were between the ages of five and 50 years, while9.1 percent have existed for four years. A further breakdown has shown that eight(40 percent) federal universities were in the category of universities that are 25-50 years,while only one state university was in that category. Four (45 percent) privateuniversities were between five and 25 years of age. The oldest university in thiscategory is ten years. This is not unexpected, as private university initiative in Nigeriais 11 years old.

A look at the status of serials librarian revealed some variations, from oneinstitution to another. The federal universities have every cadre of librarians workingin their serials unit, except deputy librarian. It was found also that three federal andtwo state universities have principal librarians (equivalent to the senior lecturer gradein Nigerian university academic staff structure) as their serials librarian. In contrast,the highest status of serials librarian in private universities is librarian II (equivalent tothe assistant lecturer grade in Nigerian university academic staff structure). Thereason for this may relate to the age of the university rather than lack of or inadequatehuman resources. On the total number of staff in serials unit, six (27 percent) of thefederal universities had between four and six staff, while three (13.6 percent) had lessthan four personnel. However, majority (57.1 percent) of the state universities had fourto six personnel in the serials unit of their libraries. In the private universities, four hadless than four staff, and two had four to six personnel. It is apparent from this resultthat federal universities had more personnel managing the serials unit than both thestate and private universities.

It is instructive to note that the management of both print and e-journals rests on theshoulders of the different categories of staff in the serials unit. The professional isexpected to devote 75 percent of his time to managing the library’s e-journals,registering with publishers, vendors or both for access, cataloguing of newly acquiredjournals, review of e-journals licenses and the need to troubleshoot access problemsamong others (Chu, 2000).

E-journal subscription (paid) and freeTable II shows the breakdown of number of libraries and the e-journal databases thatwere paid for. The majority of responding libraries (81.8 percent) acquired EBSCO HostOnline Research Databases by purchase. Clearly, this e-journal database had been

Years Frequency %

25-50 9 40.95-25 11 504 2 9.1

n ¼ 22 100Table I.

Age of universities

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the most popular among university libraries in Nigeria, as Nigerian University LibraryConsortium (NULIB) – a consortium found by the Committee of University Librariansin Nigerian Universities (CULNU) subscribed to the database on behalf of the body atdiscounted price before the National Universities Commission (NUC) took over thepayment for both federal and state universities in 2008. Initially, the privateuniversities were part of the consortium.

Presently, the private universities subscribe directly to EBSCO Host with thepublishers. Three federal and three private universities subscribe to Science Direct.During our visit to the universities, efforts of some libraries to subscribe to the databasewere revealed at interview. The results of this study revealed that a federal and a stateuniversity had subscriptions to other databases: Questia, ASEAN Ministerial Meetingon Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF), Sage, ebrary and eGranary Digital Library.

On free subscription, majority of responding libraries subscribe to e-databases,especially, those sponsored by subsidiaries of the United Nations Organizationincluding Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), HealthInternetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) and Online Access to Research inthe Environment (OARE). Journal Storage Project ( JSTOR) is also popular withuniversities because of the introduction of the special participatory initiative organizedfor African institutions with the aim to increasing and improving research from thecontinent. Before 2007 when the initiative was introduced JSTOR was fee based andexpensive, which gave it little access in Nigeria. AJOL, short for African Journal Onlineis an index of periodicals publications from Africa. Many of the journals in thisdatabase are not full texts, excepting some that are available through open accessinitiatives such as Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Bioline International.This explains why most university libraries do not subscribe to them because majorityof the articles featured in the journals can be accessed via open internet using searchengines like Google, AltaVista, etc. Table III displays the status of the free onlinee-journals on subscription in libraries.

We elicited information on the number of titles for both print and e-journals. Morethan half of the respondents (54.5 percent) claim to have more than 130 journal titles ofprint version. However, the currency and subscription status could not be ascertainedbecause the survey did not cover such aspect. Experience has shown that mostlibraries do not have enough fund to sustain print journal subscription, even whenprovisions were made in budgetary terms, there were occasions when funds werewithheld. Interestingly, close to three quarters of the libraries have access to more than

E-journal database Number of libraries

EBSCO Host 18Science Direct 6MEDLINE 5ECONLIT 1ERIC 1LANTEAL 2LEXIS NEXIS 0RSC Journal Archives 3Others 4

Table II.E-journal subscriptions(paid) in libraries

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500 titles of e-journals. This could be the result of the access most libraries have toaggregator databases such as EBSCO Host, HINARI, AGORA, JSTOR, Bioline andothers.

Overall, the size of the print journal collection may be inadequate in somelibraries when we consider the number of programmes being run in such institutions.On e-journal subscriptions, most libraries have adequate collection.

E-journals subscription models used in librariesWe asked the libraries the models used for subscription to e-journals. The respondentswere asked to mark most used models out of the five options provided on the survey(Table IV). A large number of the libraries (68 percent) used the “free with printsubscriptions” model, followed by the use of consortium deal (64 percent). The use oflocal/regional/national license agreement followed with (55 percent). The use of “freewith print subscriptions” model implies automatic access to e-journals of the printjournal titles on the subscriptions list of the libraries. This suggests that some librariesused more than one model. The use of free with print model seems inevitable tolibraries as access to e-journals – particularly those from commercial publishers is tiedto a subscription to the print. We note that respondents may not have understood theterm “journal aggregators” because most of the free databases such as HINARI,AGORA, JSTOR that are used in most libraries are products of journal aggregators. Itis therefore surprising that only seven libraries indicated the use of journal aggregatormodel. Only ten institutions used licenses for individual journal title model possiblybecause it is expensive in nature. License agreement is negotiated and signed with eachowner which allows the library’s users to access the e-journals for a specified amountof time for a specified fee, except otherwise free. This apart there is a number oftechnical details of setting up access that needs to be sorted out. It is not surprising

E-journal database Number of libraries

HINARI 16AGORA 17JSTOR 15OARE 11AJOL 9Bioline 6DOAJ 8HIGHBEAM 4Others 4

Table III.Free e-journal

subscription

Model Number of libraries %

Free with print subscriptions 15 68.2Journal aggregators 7 32Licenses for individual journal titles 10 46Regional/national consortium deal 14 64Local/regional/national license agreement 12 55

Table IV.Subscriptions model used

in libraries

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that more than almost three quarters of responding libraries used consortium dealbecause the EBSCO Host that is most used is a direct result of consortium activities.

Electronic-for-print journal substitutionsThe responding libraries were asked if they have plans to substitute e-journals withprint in the future. This question was asked for two reasons. One, over the last onedecade, several review and cancellation strategies have occupied a prominent place inlibrary literature (Frazer and Morgan, 1999). Two, e-journals have obvious advantageover print. Of the respondents, only one institution, a private university indicated plansto do so in the future. All other libraries indicated their wish to continue with printjournal subscriptions as back up to e-resources. The concerns of such libraries bother onfrequent internet downtime and constant power interruptions and outage in this part ofthe world. The widespread and increasing availability of full-text electronic periodicalproducts has added a new twist to the process of decision making for substitutions.

Summary and conclusionsSubscriptions to e-journalsAll participating libraries subscribe to one e-resource database or the other. However,more than three quarters of the respondents subscribe to EBSCO Host. The reason forthis is clear: subscriptions to the database for federal and state universities are paid bythe Federal Government of Nigeria through the NUC, while private universitiessubscribe directly with the company through the Regional Representative in Nigeria. Itseems reasonable to assume that Nigerian universities will continue to subscribe to thismajor database because of its usefulness and acceptance. An overwhelming amount ofthe respondents (72, 77 and 68 percent) subscribe to HINARI, AGORA and JSTOR,respectively. To summarize, subscription of universities to e-journal databases issatisfactory, considering the response that most libraries subscribe to 500 titles ofe-journals. If the information and communications technology facilities in libraries arefunctional, users should not have any problems of access to e-journals that are tocomplement the inadequate print resources.

Subscription model for e-journalsThe use of free with print subscription ranks high among university libraries, however,this is just slightly higher than the use of consortial deal. We can conclude that mostuniversities have already adopted tested and acceptable subscription models fore-resources. However, there are few ones that use the licenses for individual journaltitle model which involves so much details and technicalities.

Plans to cancel print journalsThe overwhelming majority of the libraries (95 percent) had no such plan. The onlyuniversity with the plan to substitute print for e-resources is a private university. Thus,we can say that with the obvious advantage of e-journals, university libraries wouldwant to continue to maintain subscription to print version.

Management of serials unitDemographic data reveals something concerning this. The issue is crucial because ofhandling and other routine activities relating to e-journals. Of the responding libraries,

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very few (13.6 percent) have senior professionals as serials librarians; however, thesurvey did not elicit information on their experience in dealing with e-resources.

The study has provided adequate information regarding the status of e-journals inNigerian universities; however, it deals with only 22 universities, out of a total of 102.

RecommendationsIn light of the findings of the study, the following recommendations are made:

. University libraries must develop strategies for providing seamless access toboth print and e-journals as the range and quality of e-resources increase.

. Private universities in Nigeria should come together to form library consortiumthat will facilitate access to discounted e-journals, particularly EBSCO Host andindeed other myriad of online resources that many of the institutions wouldotherwise not be able to afford on their own. Library’s participation in highlyeffective regional and national acquisitions consortia can be a strong factorbehind e-resources growth.

. Libraries need to develop mature economic models for the provision of electronicinformation, so that they can make meaningful comparisons between the costs ofprint and e-journals.

. Subscription to both print and e-resources should be maintained because thewithering away of physical library is unlikely at least in the foreseeable future.Should libraries want to consider titles for print cancellation, input should besought from the user departments to avoid negative reactions arising from suchelectronic-for-print cancellation.

. Librarians with experience in e-resources should be assigned to head the serialsunit. The daily management of e-journals presents enormous opportunities andchallenges such as licensing negotiations and establishing which of severalsubscription models applies to each title.

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About the authorsRichard Olorunsola, Deputy University Librarian, Redeemer’s University, has publishedextensively in the areas of serials and magazines in libraries, acquisitions, automation andlibrary management. Richard Olorunsola is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:richsola300@yahoo.com

Akinniyi A. Adeleke, is the Head, Cataloguing & Classification Unit in the Redeemer’sUniversity. He has sound knowledge of electronic resources. He teaches information literacy inthe university.

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