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Focuses on crop farmers’ access to agricultural information in rural areas of Delta State, Nigeria. Data were gathered by questionnaire from ten villages. Farmers of both genders experienced obstacles to information use, although findings revealed that there were also differences between male and female crop farmers with respect to their information needs and sources of agricultural information. Female crop farmers experienced greater problems in accessing agricultural information. However, the major information problems suffered by farmers are not gender‐specific problems. Concludes with recommendations to enhance all crop farmers’ access to agricultural information.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the current status of Institutional Repository (IR) and scholarly communications (SC) in Nigeria. The paper also deliberates the benefits of IRs including how it can help libraries in Nigeria to reduce the cost of purchasing articles and journals.

Given that the paper is an opinion of the current status of SC, a formal documented methodology is not applicable. However, it gives an overview of SC in Nigeria and traces the origin of open access awareness to 2008 when the first open access sensitization workshop was organized in Nigeria.

The study shows that Nigeria currently has 20 IRs listed in the OpenDOAR and tops the list of journals listed in the Africa Journals Online (AJOL) with 221 journal titles followed by South Africa with 96. Of the 221 Nigerian journals listed in AJOL, only 70 are open access journals.

This paper is an expression of opinion about current status of SC and particularly IRs in Nigeria. It is not based on any formal methodology. It will be useful for librarians, academic staff and academic institutions generally, especially in developing countries where IRs are still in a developmental stage. Therefore, some of the general recommendations may not be as relevant for those institutions with well-established and flourishing IRs.

The paper shows the current state of IR in Nigeria and deliberates on the impediments to successful implementation of IRs.

Access to appropriate scholarly information can play a positive role in the development of African countries. Institutional repositories (IRs) have the potential to enhance access and sharing of research-based information generated in Africa. Developing IRs is a consequence of the internet’s fundamental influence on the availability and distribution of scholarly information. IRs were instituted to optimise open access of scholarly information that can be freely distributed on the internet. The perception is that the IRs are not embraced in Africa as a valuable tool as the case is in other regions of the world. Research carried over to explore the reasons for the perceived little development and exploitation of IRs in Africa is limited. The purpose of this paper is to report on a survey that attempted to identify the obstacles and challenges regarding IRs in African academic institutions.

A webometric approach and online semi-structured questionnaires filled in by IR managers or people responsible for IR management were used to collect data for this study. Responses were received from 26 respondents.

The major obstacles were identified as inadequate funding or financial support, lack of support from institutional management and lack of awareness of IRs at institutional management level.

The study selected only IR managers or people responsible for IR management and administration in different African academic institutions with existing IRs as respondents. Other people in these institutions might have valuable knowledge about issues regarding the IRs in their institutions from whom no data were collected.

Based on the findings, the paper recommends strategies on how African academic institutions could increase the number of IRs and improve the utilisation of IRs in the continent.