Abstract
This study examined the management of electronic-based grey literature for reference
service delivery in federal university libraries in South-East Nigeria. Three research
questions guided the study. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The
population comprised 172 respondents, including 139 librarians and 33 IT professionals in
five selected federal university libraries in South-East Nigeria. The entire population was
used as the sample for the study because it is not too big, and as well relatively manageable.
Data were collected with a structured questionnaire. Mean and standard deviation were
used to answer the research questions, while independent-samples t-tests were used to
test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings showed that online search and
downloading, donation, subscription, exchange, resource sharing, gifts, and library
consortia were identified as acquisition sources. The organization methods identified were
OPAC/Web OPAC, online classification, online indexing and abstracting, online
classification using MS Word, online compilation of bibliographies, customized Google
search engines, and digitization. Staffing provisions included grey literature librarians, data
analysts, data managers, research data librarians, subject specialist librarians, data
curators, digital-skills librarians, and data emulators. A significant difference existed
between librarians and IT professionals in their ratings of acquisition sources, whereas no
significant differences existed in their ratings of organization methods and staffing
provisions. The study concludes that effective management requires coordinated
acquisition, systematic organization, appropriate staffing, adequate ICT infrastructure,
reliable power supply, funding, clear policies, and collaboration between librarians and IT
professionals.
Keywords: Electronic-based grey literature; Grey literature management; University
libraries; Reference services; Acquisition; Organization; Librarians; IT professionals
Publication Date: 2026-10-31