Factors influencing the incorporation of web technologies by university libraries in Southern African Development Community

Abstract

The role of web technologies into the service delivery in university libraries cannot be overemphasised. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the factors that influenced the incorporation of web technologies into the services of university libraries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The study was underpinned by the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and triangulated quantitative and qualitative research strategies in data collection and analysis. The population of this study comprised librarians from university libraries in the SADC region whose language of communication is English. A questionnaire, administered with the research electronic data capture (REDCap) software, was employed to collect quantitative data from 54 librarians, while an interview protocol was used to collect qualitative data from 6 librarians. Results showed that university libraries in the SADC region have incorporated web technologies in services. The results further revealed that the UTAUT constructs, namely, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions played a part in decisions by the university libraries to incorporate web technologies into their services and that librarians were influenced by these factors to use such tools to provide web-based library services.