ABSTRACT
The study explored the role of Public Libraries in Creating Awareness and improving information literacy skills of Rural Dwellers in Agbor-Obi Community, Ika South Local Government Area; Agbor-Obi Community of Ika South Local Government, Delta. The purpose of the study was to investigate the roles of public Libraries in Creating awareness among Rural Dwellers in Agbor-Obi Community, determine the level of satisfaction derived from using the public library services by rural dwellers in Agbor-Obi Community, assess the roles of public Libraries in improving information literacy skills of Rural Dwellers in Agbor-Obi Community and to determine constraints limiting the effective use of the public library in Agbor-Obi Community.
A descriptive research design was used for the study, the total population of rural dwellers living across 22 major Areas in Agbor-Obi Community, Ika South LGA , Delta State was 3,770, and a fraction of 10% was used to select a sample of 181 rural dwellers in Agbor-obi representing the population of the studyA total of 181 copies of the questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and 157 questionnaires were retrieved and found usable, resulting to 95% response rate. The instrument for data collection that was used was the questionnaire, the instrument developed in accordance with the research questions were validated by the researcher's supervisor who is an expert in library and information Science. Analyses and discussion of data collected for this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics; frequency percentage.
The result of the findings revealed that there are a lot of roles the public Libraries play in creating awareness among Rural Dwellers in Agbor-Obi Community and the level of satisfaction derived from using the public library services by rural dwellers in Agbor-Obi Community is very high. It was recommended among others that; Public library management should try to provide an alternative power supply as well as work on improving their network bandwidth and there should be adequate funding to enhance the maintenance of Public library especially in the area of updating information resources.
