Roles of Academic Libraries in National Development

The pride of any government is the attainment of higher value level of national development in such a way that its citizens would derive natural attachment to governance. However, for a nation to be in a phase of development there must be some pre-requisites, which include socio-political and economic stability for the development of academic libraries. The gap between the developed and the developing countries is not static or narrow but is continually widening. A large majority of the world’s population in developing world lives in a state of poverty. The problem of urban population, rural stagnation, unemployment and growing inequalities continue to face less developed countries, which Nigeria belongs. Hopes of accelerated development are difficult to realize. This gloomy situation is of great concern to stake holders and the concerned citizenry. Nigeria has not been able to engender meaningful development in spite of her huge resources endowment. This has greatly affected her quest to improved quality of life of her citizens. Poverty, unemployment and starvation still pervade the nook and cranny of the country of which if academic libraries are not well developed in which if it were being developed it would have fostered a good national development of its citizenry

Review of Curriculum Development in Library and Information Science Education in Nigerian Universities: Issues and Prospects

The study includes a review of curriculum development in Library and Information Science Education (LISE) in Nigerian Universities: Issues and Prospects. Analysis on curriculum development were given (history of curriculum development, types of curricula and usefulness of curriculum development for educators and challenges of curriculum development). Curriculum development is core issue in the feasibility and growth of any discipline, library and information science education inclusive. Modern day librarianship, that is 21st century library and information science education (LISE) should integrate full information and communication technology programmes and not just computer application for professional efficiency and global acceptability. Therefore, curriculum of LIS in Nigerian Universities should be reviewed both at undergraduate and postgraduate level

Electronic Information Resources Utilization among Physical Sciences Postgraduate Students in Federal University Libraries, South West, Nigeria

The study is on Electronic Information Resources Utilization among Physical Sciences Postgraduate Students in Federal University Libraries, South West, Nigeria. The research design used for this study is descriptive survey design. This is because it is a design that allows a population to be studied by collecting and analyzing data from only a sample considered to be representing the entire population. The area of the study is South Western zone of Nigeria. South Western geo political zone is made of Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos state respectively. The electronic resources are in raking order as institutional (university) website, computer, internet, computer connected to internet, photocopies, projector screen, printer, multimedia digital projector, functional email, telephone, floppy disk and others. It can therefore be concluded that electronic resources are integral part of library resources. Therefore, it should be acquired professionally and systematically. The resources need to be made accessible to the users for the goal of the library organisation to be achieved. It can therefore be recommended that users should acquire the skills needed for the purpose of utilizing the resources

A Literature Survey of Disaster Management Strategies in Library and Information Centres

Disaster is any incident which threatens human safety and damages or threatens to damage a building, collection or items, equipment, systems and services. Disaster can also be defined as an event whose timing is unexpected and whose consequences are seriously destructive. Disaster can have serious financial implication and also cause disruption of services. In fact there is no library in the world that is free from risk and disaster, whether natural or man-made. As a result, there is need to sensitize senior managers of libraries so that their institutions can be prepared. Thus, in order to avoid disasters in library and information centres, it is necessary to have a disaster management plan and strategie

Capacity Building for Sustainable Digital Information Services in 21st Century Administration of Academic Libraries in Nigeria

The paper is on capacity building for sustainable digital information services in 21st century administration of academic libraries in Nigeria. Capacity building is termed as the building or the development of organization’s facilities, equipment, provisions, features, amenities, infrastructures and resources (human and physical) to foster growth and expansion. As such, capacity building needs to be introduced in the library which includes the professional building of human resources (professional library staff and other para-professional workers) and material resources. To achieve this goal, education and trainings on administration are given to the library staff for effective, efficient output and productivity. It can therefore be concluded that capacity building in academic libraries is very essential and crucial especially when considering the imperativeness of the services rendered by librarians for the general satisfaction of the intellectual quests of patron. The services must be rendered with ethics, principles and standard in order to maximize the output of the libraries. It can therefore be recommended that library staff should be trained and re-trained on administration for the benefit of delivering a well-rounded service in the library. Also, resources should also be provided for the both junior and senior library staff in academic libraries to sustain the network of policy fulfillment in the organization

Library and Information Science (LIS) Education in the 21st Century: Emerging Skills for a Changing World

The LIS professionals are the bridge between information resources and the readers because of the skill they possessed. In the library, resources are acquired and processed based on rules and regulations of the profession. And these rules and regulations do not come in rosy way. They are acquired from the academic world where the skills are being taught, to handle library information resources in a way that users can easily access them. The core skills traditionally associated with library/ information science include information handling skills - cataloguing, classification, indexing, enquiry work and user education training skills with facilitating skills and evaluation skills. An information professional can possess a variety of these skills, depending on the sector of the library in which the person is employed. Some essential 21st century changing cross-sector skills are: IT skills, such as word-processing and spreadsheets, digitization skills, and conducting internet searches, together with skills in digitization, loan systems, databases, content management systems, and specially designed programmes and packages. Also the available soft skills include skills such as negotiating, conflict resolution, and time management, which are useful for all interactions at a workplace. In the innovative age of information science and technology, it is crucial for librarians to possess the necessary competencies for working in a specialized workplace, where the equipment and the clients’ needs are changing rapidly. Thus, LIS education should incorporate the modern information-processing skills for verity of the profession in a changing world of the 21st centur

Application of Technology Resources to Library Information Processing in Academic Libraries in Nigeria

The paper is about Application of Technology Resources to Library Information Processing in Academic Libraries in Nigeria. The electronic age has made users search beyond print media while looking for information resources. Latest research work are sent across the world through electronic means and no serious researcher of this age ever depends solely on print media rather the use of internet, websites, e-mail etc are the language of the day. Functionally, university libraries of the current dispensation provide access to both print and electronic resources to serve users and to increase the visibility of their institutions, and as a measure of prestige. In other words, they must go beyond the border of print collection in information delivery. It must extend to computer resources and other non-print format. The paper concluded that technology resources is indispensable in the 21st century for global access to information materials. Therefore academic libraries in Nigeria must strive to apply these resources to their information processing for total production and distribution of information contents in a quality manner

Relevance of Information and Communication Technology in Higher Education for National Development in the 21st Century

In recent years, there has been a groundswell of interest on how computers and the internet can best be harnessed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education and training in both formal and informal settings. For effective and modern information services, the use of information and communication technology is indispensable. Not only does ICT introduce new ways of information handling in universities, it also brings about change in the very structure of information and its communication concepts like universal bibliography, accessibility to and availability of documents irrespective of location, highly personalized services, matching users needs interests with document databases, full text searches, storage and retrieval with speed and accuracy etc. As such students will be able to benefit maximally when the electronic services are in order and the lecturers attend to them appropriately. Unfortunately what we observe in our tertiary institutions as regards to ICT instructional mode is unpleasant. The main methods of teaching up till now remain the marker and talk in spite of curricular changes, scientific and technological inventions including ICT has not taken effect. The situation is almost the same in universities and the colleges of education, instruction is mainly through dictation of notes and giving out handouts a situation whereby many students copy lots of notes from their lecturers both in their teaching subjects, general studies as well as education. This tends to make our tertiary institutions to operate at a lower technological level than the societies in the western world. There is therefore the need for the lecturers and the students to key into the new pedagogical approach of using ICT to facilitate the instructional activities in the classroom setting

A Historical Trace of Library and Information Science Education in Selected Countries of Africa- Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa

LIS education is more concerned with training in librarianship. LIS education aimed at producing competent librarians to manage all types of libraries in the countries of the world for sustainability. Other information related disciplines such as documentation, archives and records management were relatively unknown when they started existing, thus, they were not accorded prominence. However, librarianship in Africa owes its origin to colonialism. Colonialism introduced reading and writing among the indigenous people. Until then, the two activities were alien. Colonial governments introduced Western education which entailed among others, reading and writing. In an attempt to boost the two activities, a need was felt to provide the new literates with information materials, basically books, to further their reading and writing skills which brought about the establishment of Library Schools in Africa. Thus, UNESCO played a leading role in the establishment of LIS education programmes in Africa and in particular Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa. The pressure emanated from public libraries. UNESCO was convinced that illiteracy in sub-Saharan Africa could only be eradicated with the support of libraries. A number of regional seminars were held between 1953 and 1963 on the African continent to sensitize colonial governments on the need to establish public libraries in their colonies to speed up socio-economic development, thus, library schools were established in Africa to sustain library practices.The history of Library Education was traced in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. The paper concluded that the existing ICT laboratories in all library schools in Africa should be well equipped, while the library schools without laboratories should be encouraged to establish one by training efficient manpower to manage and coordinate the established libraries in Africa and the yet-to-be established ones in order to sustain library practices. Adequate laboratories would enhance the provision of adequate and efficient practical and the acquisition of IT skills. Above all, the parent institutions in Africa (universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education) running LIS programme should provide adequate funding for the procurement of facilities in the ICT laboratories

Use of Library as a Correlate of Undergraduate Students’ Exploration of Library Materials in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria

The work is on library instruction programme as a correlate of undergraduate students’ Utilization of Library Materials in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria. The research design used for this study is ex-post facto research design. The population comprises all the undergraduates in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. Simple random and stratified random sampling technique was employed for the study. One hundred and twenty users were sampled from the programme in all the schools (strata) in the college through library access. Out of 120 copies of the questionnaire administered to the students in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, 114 (99%) were returned and used for the analysis. The researchers collected the data through face-to-face administration of questionnaire. Five research questions and two hypotheses were used for the study. The data generated were interpreted using percentages and frequencies; mean and standard deviation through Likert scaling of the responses where applicable. Based on this result, the students’ knowledge about the methods of Library Instruction Programmes (LIP) course in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo are classroom teaching, library orientation, library guide and ask a librarian. It was inferred that the students’ rate of understanding of the Library Instruction Programme topics is high and the rate of students’ use of Library resources in Adeyemi College of Education Library is low. The challenges that students experience during Library Instruction Programme course in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo are non utilization of ICT for library instruction, inadequate classroom for library instruction, shortage of staff (librarians) to instruct students, lack of interest in library instruction programme among others. The paper concluded that students in Adeyemi College of Education understand some of the concepts of Library Instruction Programme (LIP) without any basis on gender differences. However, the services in the library were under explored. It was therefore recommended that librarians should sensitize the users more on the services provided in the library for optimal satisfaction of the users. And that the challenges of the students in the course LIP should be tackled by the lecturers and college authority for the benefits of getting desired results in the students’ knowledge of the course for maximal utilization of the library resources