Public Relation Practices in Polytechnic Libraries for Effective Service Delivery in North-Central, Nigeria

This study investigated public relations practices for effective service delivery in polytechnic libraries in North-Central, Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study was 107 library staff consisting of both federal and state polytechnic libraries in North-Central, Nigeria. There was no sampling as all the population of the study was used as sample. Two sets of instruments were used to collect data for the study: questionnaire for library staff and interview guide for the polytechnic librarians. The instruments were subjected to face validation by two experts. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics while the qualitative data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed through document analysis as confirmatory to the quantitative data collected. The formulated hypotheses were tested using t-test. The findings revealed that public relations practices used by librarians were attending to users’ enquiries on the public information desks and providing suggestion boxes to collect users’ opinions, etc. (X = 3.20, Sd = 0.77; X = 3.10, Sd = 0.73); Projectors and bulletin boards were the facilities employed in public relations practices (X = 3.21, Sd = 0.86; X = 3.18, Sd = 0.69). Based on the findings, it was recommended that, the library management should create awareness on the public relations practices used for effective service delivery through such fora as workshop, orientation, and seminar to educate library users on the relevance of public relations; also librarians should use every possible avenue to be abreast with state-of-the-art facilities that can be employed in public relations practices in polytechnic libraries for effective service delivery, among others.