Description
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the role of communication in effective service delivery in libraries and information centres of Federal Polytechnic Idah. Federal Polytechnic Idah Library was selected for the study and survey research design was adopted. 70 staff were given copies of questionnaires and 64 copies were returned, with about 91.4% response rate. Frequency distribution, percentages, tables, mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the results. The findings show that information flows from the Polytechnic librarian down the hierarchy and that ideas of senior staff are taken into consideration in taking decisions, written form of communication is majorly being used for official matters. It was also found that communication is a veritable tool in service delivery in the library and that poor educational background among others is a barrier to effective communication; and proper communication promotes job effectiveness and services delivering in the library.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
APPROVAL PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
- Statement of the Problem
- Aim and objectives of the study
- Scope of the study
- Research questions
- Significance of the study
- Limitation of the study
- Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
- REVIEW OF CONCEPTS
- What is a service?
- What is service delivery?
- The Effective Service Delivery
- REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES
- Barriers to organisational communication
2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.3.1 Forms of communication
2.3.2 Written Communication
2.3.3 Non-verbal Communication
2.3.4 Effective Communication Skills
2.5 Relationship between effective communication and service delivery
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
- Introduction
- Research Design
3.3 Population of Study
3.4 Sampling Technique/Sample
3.5 Instrument for Data Collection
3.6 Data presentation and analysis
CHAPTER FOUR
- DATA AND RESULT ANALYSIS
- Demographic variables of the respondents
- DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS
CHAPTER FIVE
- Conclusion
- Recommendation
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Communication is vital part of human existence, as long as there is life, human being perpetually seeking to be heard and understood to look around us today, human being are always interacting with one another.
The person wishing to be heard and understood is the sender of the message. He generates meaning by encoding the message in a way he thanks it would be understood. The person who is the target of the message is the receiver. He listens to the messages, decodes, attributes meanings to it and sends feedbacks to the sender depending on the meaning he attributes to the message.
This is why communication has been described as the process of generating and attributing meanings in an organization setting, nothing can be achieved without communication, because organization exists to accomplish goals that a single individual cannot tackle. It is then compulsory for interaction of all sorts to take place on organization.
Communication in organization is the transfer of information between manager and his staff. It is a necessary process in directing the efforts of others towards the achievement of results. If management entails getting things done through people, communication is the essence of it, for without effective communication no one would know what they are supposed to be doing, Nor would there be any basis for answering questions solving problems, obtaining feedback or measuring result.
The role of effective communication in any organisation cannot be over emphasised most especially in libraries and information centres of any institution. Libraries are established to achieve set goals and objectives. It is obviously clear that realizing the objectives effectively predicates on effective and adequate communication of policies and procedures that will sustain the organisational efforts towards their goals. Communication as part of the managerial task is that which involves the symbolic manipulation of ideals in order to bridge the understanding between one person and other(s). This is done with the intention of reducing uncertainty about some referent, solve a particular problem, confirm or obtain support for a position, control situation in library and information centres or to respond to someone else’s communication. Communication as a tool towards achieving individual and organisational goals and objectives facilitates the sharing of information, experience and knowledge, transmission of ideas, decisions, information, coordination and interpretations of activities. It helps to provide all categories of employees with unity of direction, a sense of shared expectations, feelings and attitudes that are essential ingredients for sustaining group effort and attainment of organisational goals and objectives (Itodo, 2007).
Communication plays an important role in carrying out various activities that are geared towards meeting the information needs of the users such as acquisition, cataloguing, classification and dissemination of information to various library users. For instance, to acquire information materials in university library, be it print or e-resources, the acquisition librarian needs to communicate with different faculties and departments to know the materials that would best meet information needs of both the students and the faculty members. Any librarian who thinks he can go ahead and acquire information materials without proper communication with the clientele would be far from being termed 21st century librarian. Apart from communicating with users, he still has to communicate with the relevant authority to ascertain the percentage of the resources to be channeled to print and what goes to e-resources.
The goal of the library is to make information accessible to the users. The process is not complete without the cataloguing and classification of these information materials. To do these effectively, there must be an effective communication among the professionals and para-professionals involved in the process. Effective communication according to Afinotan (2009) must be understood as; the meeting of the minds between the sender and the receiver, on the particular information being transmitted. When there is an effective communication in the cataloguing and classification process, the goal of classifying books according to subject and according to the form in which the subject is presented would be achieved; books and other information resources would be classified where they will be most useful.
1.2 Statement of the problem
Communication, which is a basic skill required in rendering information services in library and information centres of any institution such as Idah Polytechnic, has not been accorded a necessary priority. Most importantly, librarians and other information professionals have not seen it as a veritable tool in rendering effective services. It is unfortunate that some of the information professionals and other support staff in the library cannot communicate well with users due to their poor master of the English language which is an official language of communication or due to wrong perception that they are not under any obligation to effectively communicate with users. It is sad enough that users who are the central focus of information services sometimes fail to communicate effectively with reference librarians and other library staff due to poor communication skills and anticipated negative responses from the library workers thereby making their information needs not to be met. Poor communication system among workers is slowing down the pace of work and increasing organizational conflict.
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the study
The main aim of this study is the study communication as an effective tool in service delivery using libraries and information centres of Federal Polytechnic Idah as a case study
This study aims at achieving the following objectives:
- To find out the pattern of organizational communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah library;
- To determine the method of communication in the library;
- To evaluate the impact of communication on service delivery in Federal Polytechnic Idah;
- To ascertain the barriers to effective communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah libraries;
- To find out the perception of staff about communication Federal Polytechnic Idah
1.5 Research questions
This study seeks to provide answers to the following questions:
- What is the flow of organizational communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah Library?
- What method of communication is predominately being used in library administration?
- What are the barriers to communication in library and information centres?
- What are the perceptions of staff about communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah Library?
1.6 Significance of the study
Communication has always been and still is an important aspect of daily living. More than ever before, its importance is heightened by the fact that the whole world is more interrelated than in the past, due to the development of organization.
Most only thus, the amount of industrial unrest that is evident today underscores this point, besides the term generation gap signifies failure in communication between various age groups in the society.
Evidence all around us and our personal experience suggest that effective communication is not easy even though very desirable.
1.7 Scope of the study
There are lots of communication principles used in most organization settings, but this research work will be restricted to communication variables, methods of communication and types of communication.
The researcher will especially covers the communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah Library.
1.8 Limitation of the study
The researchers have been limited to communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah Library.
The findings from this case study will be used to present the communications used in higher institution in Nigeria.
The limitation of this study is not an easy task to undertake a research work in any field of human endeavour. Ours is not an explanation, such problems like finance, secrecy, the size of the establishment and time, have all contributed to the narrowed result.
- Finance: The researchers did not find it easy going from one department of Federal Polytechnic Idah Library every time before they could get the title data and because the researchers were running shorts of funds, the visit could not be intensified
- Size of the establishment: the researchers only covered communication in Federal Polytechnic Idah Library out of the other department of the school.
- Time: The time allocated for this research work is too short and coupled with other academic work which the researchers has to face, thereby reducing the researchers work to minimum.
1.9 Definition of terms
- Communication: peter little (1977) defined communication as the process by which information is transmitted between individuals and organizations so that an understanding response results.
- Organization: It can be define as the vehicle, by which large scale effort are blends efforts together in pursuit of a major objective.
- Development: Development can defined as the process of giving adequate training to the employee procured in an organization in other to increase communication.
CHAPTER FIVE
Conclusion
Communication is needed in many organizational functions, both internal and external. The form the communication takes may be oral but, more often, it is written. In small businesses, much communication can be oral, often face to face. As organizations grow in complexity and number of members, more messages must be written. They would be forced to use more impersonal means of exchanging information, such as memos, reports and bulletins and newsletters. In rendering library services, both the users and the library staff must communicate effectively to know their information needs and the materials to meet them.
5.2 RECOMMENDATION
Efforts should be made to tackle various barriers to effective communication among library staff and with the users. Librarians and other library staff should take advantage of web 2.0 technology to improve communication with users in meeting their information needs and among library staff for optimum benefits of the organisation.
