Information Seeking Behaviour of Law Students in a Developing Country: a Literature Review

The major purpose of this paper was to investigate the information seeking behaviour of undergraduate law students of a developing country. Specifically, the paper made efforts to globally review related literature on legal information, library information and its relevance to lawyers and law students, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the legal profession, information services to legal professionals, information needs of law students, information seeking strategy of law students, ICT utilisation skills of law students, law students’ utilisation of digital libraries, challenges and problems of digital libraries, and legal information seeking behaviour and ICT skills of law students in Nigeria. The results of the reviewed literature reveal that (lawyers) law students do not fully utilise library information resources while seeking information due to lack of exposure to ICTs equipment and or traditional teaching method used in law classes, which does not encouraged law students to harness legal information from the university law libraries. Some of the literatures reviewed reveal poor electricity power supply; lack of professional and skilled staff; lack of maintenance culture and lack of commitment by staff. It also reveal, lack of ICT library resources, staff training deficiencies as challenges faced, and the other contributory factor to why law students lack interest in patronising the law libraries to seek information.