Abstract
This paper explored the innovativeness and adoption categorization in library automation of the Federal Colleges of Education libraries North-West Nigeria. Majority of higher institutions of learning in North-West Nigeria rely very well on the traditional method of library functions and services rather than adopting automation. And the yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of institution bodies is the extent to which they are expose to new things. Therefore, the overall objective of the study was to provide explanation on the problem of lack of adoption for library automation by the academic libraries whose institution names are earlier stated. The population of the study involved five (5) college librarians, and all were sampled, each represented from the five Federal Colleges of Education North-West Nigeria. Descriptive survey method, alongside a questionnaire was used for data collection. Prior to the survey, questionnaire items were validated by lecturers in the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Gezira Sudan. And a run reliability test (alpha level 0.05) indicated 0.700 Cronbach??s Alpha Coefficient on innovativeness for adoption of library automation, and 0.993 Cronbach??s Alpha Coefficient on adoption category for library automation. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of simple frequency count and mean scores. All college librarian questionnaires were retrieved and used for data analysis. And findings revealed that, the innovativeness for adoption of library automation by the academic libraries was characterized of the followings: speediness, automatic and ease to use, economic advantage, storage capacity, and social prestige among others. Another finding revealed on the construct of a theory the adoption category of the academic libraries: for example, Federal Colleges of Education Bichi, Katsina and Zaria were found ??Early Adopters??. The researcher concluded on the note that, the adoption of library automation by the academic libraries studied is positive, only that, affordability of library automation wasn??t flexible for the libraries. Hence, one vital recommendation was the need for the Federal Colleges of Education libraries North-West Nigeria to be adequately funded by their parent institutions, so that finance becomes not a problem to them in adopting forthcoming library automations.
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