Library services provision in selected Universal Secondary Schools in Entebbe Municipality

Abstract

This study examined library services provision in Entebbe Comprehensive Secondary School and Airforce Secondary school in Entebbe Municipality. It was guided by the following objectives; to identify library services provided in selected USE schools in Entebbe Municipality, to establish the challenges affecting library services provision in selected USE schools in Entebbe Municipality and to make proposals for improving library services provision in USE schools in Entebbe Municipality. The school library which is an integral component of the school curriculum plays an important role both in the context of the educational system and in preparing the future generation of library users. The school library enables students to learn on their own through reading, studying or researching. This is because the greatest concentration of information resources is found in the library. A case study design as well as quantitative and qualitative research approaches was used to execute the study. Data was collected from 95 respondents which comprised students (145), Librarians, Teachers in charge of Academics, Deputy Head teachers in charge of academics from the two USE schools in Entebbe Municipality. The study revealed that USE schools have libraries with books which teachers use as sources of reference materials for reading and advising the students to utilize. The collection is balanced to include literature on leisure such as novels and magazines, periodicals all made available via open access. Access to the library resources is possible for all students and the school community/staff based on presentation of a students’ Identity Card of gate pass, for the rest of the school community members. Newspapers are only accessed after use by the teachers and members of administration. However, there are indeed few good books that meet the current information needs for both students and teachers with most of the text books being outdated and irrelevant to the school curriculum. The findings further indicate that school libraries provided reading services, reference services, lending services and current awareness services. ICT services, user advice services as well as recreational services are completely lacking. This implies that there are inadequate services to meet the information needs of the schools. The study concludes that library services provision in U.S.E school that focuses on long-term interaction and services are still lacking to meet the wants and needs of a library’s users thus recommends need for establishment of a proper library service for U.S.E schools in Uganda that will enable students meet their information needs.