Social influence and effort expectancy as correlates of librarians` use of AI technologies for information retrieval in libraries in South-South, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined social influence and effort expectancy as predictors of librarians` use of AI technologies for information retrieval in libraries, with specific reference to Nigeria. To undertake the study, the correlational research design framework was used to examine professional librarians in public universities within the South South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The population of the study comprised 301 librarians drawn from public university libraries within the South-South zone of Nigeria. Given the manageable size of the data, the entire population was used as the sample size. Thus, the total enumeration sampling technique was adopted. Questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection and the data collected was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings revealed positive relationship between social influence and librarians’ use of AI technologies for information retrieval. The study also showed a correlation between effort expectancy and librarians’ use of AI technologies for information retrieval. Given the outcome of the study, the paper therefore concluded that critical AI literacy programmes should be organized for librarians and library users so they can become effective and efficient users of AI technologies for information retrieval. The study recommended that library administrators should invest more in AI technologies in the library because of its growing acceptance in society and because it is relatively easy to learn and use.