Availability, Level of use and Constraints to use of Electronic Resources by Law Lecturers in Public Universities in Nigeria

Electronic legal information resources are legal documents, concerned with law which requires computer and its accessories to be accessed. Law is a learned profession; judges and other personnel in legal practice, and students rely on information sources such as law reports, legal encyclopaedias, digests, codes, treatises, etc. for their productivity. However, these resources are today available not only in print form but also in electronic form. As such, there are electronic legal information resources. This development has made access to legal information easy; it has reduced the heavy dependence on printed legal information sources, and it has encouraged self-education. This study surveyed the level of availability, use and constraints to use of electronic resources among law lecturers in Nigeria. Five hundred and fifty-two law lecturers were surveyed and four hundred and forty-two responded. Data analysis revealed that the level of availability of electronic resources for the use of the law lecturers was very low; most of major electronic information resource son law like LexisNexis, Westlaw, Kluwer Arbitration, and I-law are not readily available. They are being subscribed to during accreditation exercises only. Use of electronic resources on law among the law lecturers was low. Majority of them reported non-use of the resources. This is due to low level of availability of the resources, non-availability of desired electronic resources within the universities, absence of sufficient training on the use of electronic resources, paucity of work stations to access electronic resources within the universities, and low level of local contents among others. The study recommended regular subscriptions to electronic resources and provision of basic information literacy skills with emphasis on how to access, retrieve, download and print electronic resources for the law lecturers.