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INFORMATION RETRIEVAL METHODS (A CASE STUDY OF ONITSHA DIVISIONAL LIBRARY)

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INFORMATION RETRIEVAL METHODS (A CASE STUDY OF ONITSHA DIVISIONAL LIBRARY)

ABSTRACT

This study aims at finding the information retrieval system is basically a system that stores a record in a file for data relevant to each request. The purpose of such a system is to help access and use of knowledge that has been recorded. This study on information retrieval methods:

A case study of the Onitsha divisional library is an investigation into the various means adopted by the library understudy in their information retrieval process. Particular attention is paid to existing information retrieval methods use in the library and how suitable they are, the basic advantages of digital information retrieval systems over manual were also revealed by the study… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Information is a basic human need. It is needed virtually in all facets of human endeavor such as teaching, learning, business, decision making, education, travel, etc. No modern society can function effectively within the intensive of information whether in print or nonprint format.

It is therefore pertinent to know how this information can be the harness, retrieved, and disseminated for use by the user or the society in a modern world. The different methods of information retrieval are therefore discussed in this write up with a special interest in Onitsha divisional library.

The word information cannot be mentioned in the isolation of human beings. The information has been described as the master resource, the chief raw material, and the principal product of modern economics. Even before the modern world, the ancient world has been dealing with information gathering storage and retrieval which were done in an ancient way where papyrus, clay tablets, etc were used.

Information can be seen as data that have been subjected to some logical processing or functions capable of answering a user’s query, be it recorded, summarized, or simply collected that would help in decision making. Information retrieval methods or systems came into being as a means of ensuring that information generated and recorded do not get lost over time. Before knowledge became, individuals formed the repository of knowledge. With libraries, a repository of knowledge began to change into recorded form.

Nowadays the quantity of new information being generated is such that no individual can hope to cope with this information explosion and at the same time make them available to users. This led to the use of information retrieval with minimum cost in time, labor, and money. The information retrieval method or system, therefore, is the process of searching some collections of documents in order to identify those documents which deal with a particular subject… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

A Brief History of Onitsha Divisional Library

In Nigeria, educational activities started with the arrival of the White-men who introduced their religion to us. In the process, churches and schools were established. A seminar was organized for the development of public libraries in Africa and it is held at the university college, Ibadan between 27th July and 21st August 1953.

This seminar focuses on drawing up guidelines for public library services. The seminar also covered all aspects of public libraries and the major outcome includes the formation of the professional library association then called the West African Library Association (WALA). The impact of WALA is quite immense.

The Eastern Nigeria government then under the leadership of late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe too up the chance of UNESCO (United Nations Educational and scientific cultural organization) conference and invites professionals from the regions to come and help to establish a public library in the region. Late Mr. Kalu Okorie comes and surveyed the Eastern region and make recommendations, part of which is that there must be library legislation to give legal backing to the establishment of public library services. This recommendation is accepted by the regional government.

The Eastern part of Nigeria, therefore, becomes the first region to have library board and library legislation. The establishment of the library actually takes effect in 1958 with the building of the regional library headquarter at Enugu. This quickly followed with the establishment of divisional libraries at port Harcourt, Ikote Ekpne Umuahia, and later at Onitsha and other branch libraries were also established Onitsha Divisional library was established in 1967. It is not a separate library of its own.

The library is used during the war as Onitsha high court until 1972, when the library is renovated and open for users consultation, following the creation of 19 states in 1973 Anambra State is created out of the east-central state just like Imo state, each of the states had libraries within its area of jurisdiction… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

Statement of the Problem

The period under review in this research work is of great importance. It is a period of manual information explosion. It is a period more many retrieval methods exist, where more efficient, rapid, and accurate retrieval methods have been developed such as the use of catalog cards, index, and bibliography abstract as well as the computer… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

Research Objectives

This study aims at finding the causes and solutions to the problems of information retrieval methods by the library. The following objectives are:

  1. To identify the available information retrieval system used by the library under study… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Information retrieval methods are the procedure for a file of data in the library. To achieve this aim the researcher wishes to state the following which is important reviewing literature related to this study.

Concepts of Information Retrieval System

There are basically three main concepts of information retrieval systems namely:

  1. Database management system
  2. The bibliographic reference retrieval system
  3. Question-answering system

Seltzer, (2008) defined database management (DBMS) as a set of software programs that control the organization, storage, management, and retrieval of data in a database… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

According to Unagba, (2010) bibliographic reference retrieval system (BRRS) is a system normally that deals with text, such as title and abstracts of book and articles and retrieval citation to the item of the specific subject are stored in a library file… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

In retrieval, the question answering system (QAS) is the task of automatically answering the question posed in natural language. To find the answer to a question, a pre-structure database or a collection of natural language documents (a text corpus such as the World Wide Web or some local collection).. (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

Storage and Retrieval System

Here, a request for information could be compared with the file contents and the best match made. In practice, however, the content of both the query and of the items of stored information must first be more clearly identified. Chijioke, (2010) highlights out that in database management, the content of each record is rated according to scales of values, in reference retrieval, a document is represented by a set of terms each of which carries a value (weight) depending on its importance each document.

More sophisticated systems choose and weight index words or wood phrases in the individual document, the higher the frequency of occurrence of a given word, the greater the weight assigned to it. In automatic indexing, up to two terms may represent a document for an item… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The researcher used the survey method in carrying out her work. The survey refers to an investigation into certain things or events that exist or occur at the time of the research and connected with some problem situation that is felt over a wide area by a large population.

Area of the Study

The area under this study in Onitsha North Local Government Area, Anambra State.

Population of The Study

The population of this study comprises the staff and users of the Onitsha Divisional Library. The population of the study is one hundred (100) and one hundred is made up of twenty-five (25) library staff and seventy-five (75) library users… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Data Presentation

As already explained in chapter three of this work the questionnaire method and observation were employed by the researcher to obtain the necessary requirement needed for this study.

All these help in making it possible for the researcher to gather the correct information from the respondents. The data collected are analyzed, tabulate, and interpreted in this chapter while computation is shown in percentage as well figured.

Furthermore, out of the hundred (100) copies of questionnaires distributed, only eighty copies (80) were completed and returned by the respondents. And from this returned, 10 copies were from the library staff, while the remaining 70 copies from the users (students)

 DISTRIBUTION AND RETRIEVAL OF INSTRUMENT

Respondents Quantity distributed Quantity returned Percentage
Library staff 10 10 12.5%
Library users 90 70 87.5%
Total 100 80 100%

From the above table, one can observe that the retuned questionnaire from the library staff is 12.5%, while the users are 87.5%. The data was analyzed in percentage using the formula.

=          Number of respondent          x        100

Total number of respondents                 1

Table 1: What are the existing information retrieval methods used in Onitsha Divisional Library?

Opinions Response Percentage
Catalog card 60 75%
Computer 0 0%
Indexing 20 25%
Total 80 100%

From the data collected, one can discover that 75% of respondents are catalog cards, 25% indexing while no respondent identified computer as a means of information retrieval in Onitsha Divisional Library.

 Table 2: How are materials being organized in Onitsha Divisional Library?

Opinions Response Percentage
Catalogue & classification 50 62%
Selective organization 25 31.3%
Indexing 5 6.3 %
Total 80 100%

The table above clearly shows that the library organizes its materials through cataloging and classification which bears 50 respondents representing 62.5%, 31.3% representing 25 respondents also indicated. Selective organization whereas 6.3% of respondents identified indexing. So from the table, one can see that the library understudy makes use of cataloging and discussion to organize their material rather than the other opinions… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary

This study is concerned with information retrieval methods: A case study of the Onitsha Divisional Library. The study, however, carried out disclosed to us the different information types, concepts, storage, and retrieval system in modern librarianship… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

Conclusion

From the above study carried out in the course of this project, it can be concluded that the above-mentioned library has not fully embraced the information retrieval system which is automated through tremendous improvement has been made. Generally speaking, most public libraries in Nigeria are lacking behind when compared with their counterparts in other countries.

Recommendations

From the study, the researcher is pertinent to recommended that every effort should be made for the personnel of the library to be adequately trained in the use of automated systems and Microsoft center to be equipped with computers for on-line services. The government should, on the other hand, change their attitude towards library development by funding the library properly.

REFERENCES

Chijioke, A.I (2010) Computer software Applications and Operations. Awka: De Mercury Bright press. pp 190-201.

Edoka, B.E (2005) Introduction to library Science. Onitsha: Palma publishing and links company limited, P. 34.

Ezemba, N.C (2004) The Essentials of Library and Information Science Ekwulobia: Theo Onwuka and sons Publishers. P. 174.(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

Godfrey, B.E (2006) A Practical Approach to library and information Science Benin: Ehis printers. P. 176. (Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

Obodoeze F.O (1996) Modern Textbook of Research Methodology. Enugu: Academic publishing company. Pp. 61072.(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

Obodoeze, F.O (2008) Principles and Techniques of books editing and indexing Onitsha: Midfield publishers limited Pp. 47-55. (Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

Oparaku, E.E (2004) Problems of Information flow. Lagos: Classic Publishers Limited. P. 8. (Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

Singhal, A.A (2001) Modern Information Retrieval. Enugu: John Jacob’s class publishers limited. P. 24. (Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

The New Encyclopedia (1985) ed.; vol. 15, Information centres and Retrieval. P. 161. (Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

Unagha, A.O (2010) Knowledge Organization, and Information Retrieval. Okigwe: WHYTEM Publishers. Pp. 207-219. (Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)(Information Retrieval Methods)

(Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

(Get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)

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