The Role of Agricultural Libraries in Literacy Education as a Prelude to Capacity Building among Rural Farmers in Nigeria

Illiteracy among Nigerians, with its social and economic implications, has become a growing concern in recent years. National awareness of problems associated with limited literacy skills has led to legislation, beginning at the federal level, to fund new literacy programmes and expand existing programmes. Libraries and information centers are viewed as an important component of this massive educational effort, especially in the light of the fact that 75 percent of farmers in Nigeria are illiterate rural dwellers. A descriptive survey method was adopted for the study. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in forms of tables and charts. The findings revealed that agricultural libraries have major roles to play in literacy education to rural farmers in order to build their capacity to produce technology based agricultural goods that will reverse the negative impact of agriculture on the Nigerian economy. Results also showed that rural farmers had farm related information needs, peculiar information sources, and the agricultural information gathered by farmers were used to meet production related needs. The role agricultural libraries can play in literacy education of rural farmers in Nigeria were enunciated to include providing information to the extension workers and repackaging agricultural information for the rural farmers in local languages and dialects where necessary. Information Communication Technology developments within the library that can impact on the generation and dissemination of agricultural information to farmers included dissemination of information on posters, use of digital white boards for interactive extension workshops and dissemination of current digital agricultural information from the internet among others. In conclusion, the agricultural libraries have the human and material resources to join the extension team to conduct research and give rural farmer necessary information needed to provide to achieve technology based agriculture that will help the Nigerian nation achieve food sufficiency and security. It was recommended that Agricultural librarians should consider joining the agricultural extension team. The repackaging of agricultural information accessible to the library via online as well as the offline sources should be considered by the librarians in liaison with the agricultural experts. The agricultural librarians should spearhead the advocacy that will ensure the establishment of public libraries in all the local government areas in Abia state as this will ease the access to information to these rural farmers. Keywords Agricultural Libraries; Literacy Education; Capacity Building; Rural Farmers; Nigeri

Creating universal resource locator links on library computers desktop: A panacea for students’ underutilization of subscribed electronic databases in academic institutions in Nigeria

97-105<span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";="" mso-ansi-language:en-gb;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-GB">This study is a 3-week experiment using Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU) Digital Library and clients as study area and population respectively. Having observed the problem of students and researchers underutilization of electronic databases subscribed by academic institutions in Nigeria, the research was aimed at testing students and researchers approach to a new method that may enhance usage of subscribed electronic databases and recommend it if positive. Dummy links, representing some of the Universal Resource Locators (URLs) of the databases subscribed by MOUAU were created as the desktop page of ten computers in the digital library. Designed purposively, a click on the dummy links referred clients to the librarian. The record of clients who reported to the Digital Librarian as a result of the dummy upload request was collated. Apart from finding that, gender, level of study and purpose of visit are electronic database utilization variables, the study reveals that creating URL links on desktop pages would effectively sensitize and increase students’ utilisation of the various electronic databases subscribed by individual Nigerian academic institutions. The experiment’s result show that URL links would effectively introduce subscribed electronic databases to students and researchers much better than any other means.</span

BIOLOGIC AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF INCLUDING DIFFERENT AGRO-INDUSTRIAL BY-PRODUCTS IN TURKEY POULT DIETS

The biologic and economic effects of including three agro-industrial by-products as ingredients in turkey poult diets were investigated using 48 turkey poults in a completely randomised design experiment. Diets were formulated to contain the three by-products – wheat offal, rice husk and palm kernel meal, each at 20% level of inclusion and designated Treatment 2, 3 and 4, respectively. These were compared with a control diet (Treatment 1) that did not contain any of these by-products. Treatment 4 encouraged better performance (P0.05) as for birds on control treatment in all the three biologic parameters investigated. These results were better than performance of birds on Treatment 2. The economic parameters (cost per kg feed, cost per kg weight gain and gross margin) followed similar pattern as the growth parameters above. The poults on Treatment 2 had higher (

Inhibition of Plasmodium berghei growth by alkaloid extract of Phyllanthus amarus in mice increased haem level and stabilized erythrocyte membrane

Objectives: The Plasmodium parasite is known for its ability to destabilize the red cell membrane causing the release of free haem which is converted to haemozoin as haem is toxic to parasite. In combination with other factors, accumulation of haemozoin is associated with anaemia which manifest in severe malaria. Compounds directed at preventing erythrocyte attack and increasing haem concentrations could serve as new sources of antimalarials. Therefore, this study assessed the ability of Phyllanthus (P.) amarus alkaloid extract, a phytochemical, already reported to possess antimalarial activity, in reducing erythrocyte deformity and preventing parasite multiplication by increasing haem concentrations. Methods: The study involved measurement of parasite clearance, changes in haematological indices and degree of erythrocyte membrane stabilization (using heat-induced and hypotonic-solution induced destabilization assays) in Plasmodium (P.) berghei infected mice treated with alkaloid extract of P. amarus using documented methods. Results: Infection of experimental mice with Plasmodium berghei, induced malaria with evidence of anaemia (reduced PCV and Hb), reduction in haematological indices (RBC, WBC, platelets, lymphocytes, and eosinophil), increased serum haemozoin and haem concentration and destabilization of erythrocyte membrane