Emotional Intelligence as a Predictor of Service Quality in College of Education Libraries South-West Nigeria

Library service quality is an important factor which determines user satisfaction and operational efficiency of the academic libraries, thus providing users with access to the information resources in a timely manner to support their teaching and research processes. Emotional Intelligence is one of the organisational and human aspects that affect service delivery in the library, including the relationship that exists between the library staff and the users as well as the ability of the library staff members to respond to service requests. This paper has discussed emotional intelligence to be a predictor of service quality in College of Education libraries in South-West Nigeria. The study was based on the Emotional Intelligence model and LibQUAL + framework. The survey involved 183 library staff in 11 Colleges of Education and a total- enumeration sampling plan was used since the population size was manageable. Structured questionnaires were used for data collection. The research questions were addressed using frequencies, percentages, and mean scores, while the hypothesis was tested using simple linear regression analysis at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that library personnel exhibited a high level of emotional intelligence (grand mean = 3.21) and provided high-quality library services (grand mean = 3.42), indicating strong interpersonal competencies and effective user-centered service delivery. Further analysis demonstrated a moderate, positive, and statistically significant relationship between emotional intelligence and service quality (R = 0.458, p < 0.05). Emotional intelligence accounted for 20.4% of the variance in service quality (Adj. R² = 0.204). The regression results further indicated that emotional intelligence significantly predicted service quality, with a unit increase in emotional intelligence corresponding to a 0.458 increase in service quality (? = 0.458, p < 0.001). These results suggest that higher levels of emotional intelligence among library personnel contribute significantly to improved library service delivery. The research findings are that emotional intelligence is a powerful predictor of good service delivery in College of Education libraries and thus advises that continuous staff development programme on emotional intelligence competencies is necessary to maintain and enhance quality service delivery in the library.