Abstract:
Though Law Libraries in Rwanda were established to meet the information needs of legal
professionals, it has been observed that they remain underutilized. Nonetheless, no study
has been undertaken to establish the reasons behind that underutilization. The aim of this
study was to investigate the utilization of law libraries by legal professionals and
recommends ways of enhancing their utilization. The specific objectives were to:
determine the range of information resources and services provided by law libraries,
examine the extent to which Legal professionals utilize law libraries, determine the extent
to which the library resources and services meet the needs of legal professionals, examine
the information policies governing law libraries, analyse the use of ICTs in law libraries,
examine the factors that inhibit library use by legal professionals and propose strategies
for promoting the usage of law libraries. The study was guided by Gorman and Crawford
five Laws of Librarianship. This study adopted a mixed research approach and a survey
research design. The study population comprised users and Libraries staff. A sample of
63 users and 4 staff was drawn from a population of 335 users and 7 staff. The 63 Library
users were identified through stratified sampling method whereby each Law Library
formed a stratum and the respondents from each Library were randomly selected. Data
were collected by the use of questionnaires for users and interviews for staff. The study
established that Law libraries did not have adequate resources necessary for legal
professionals‟ day to day activities and that law libraries were not utilized on a regular
basis. It was also observed that the utilization of law libraries was impeded by
inadequacy of resources, irrelevance of some available resources, inefficient library use
policies, inadequate integration of ICTs in information processing and dissemination and
ineffective information services. The study concluded that law libraries were not
maximally utilized. The study recommends regular user studies, update of law libraries in
terms of quality and quantity of resources, full integration of ICTs in information
processing and dissemination, employing qualified staff, well-articulated information
access and use policies, establishment of a Law Libraries consortium, provision of
adequate fund, improving existing libraries services.