The Librarians’ Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN) has evolved a multi-faceted approach to address challenges facing libraries and the practice of librarianship in Nigeria.
During an interview with The Nation in Abuja, Registrar and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), LRCN, Dr Victoria Okojie, identified inadequate funding, poor infrastructure and inadequate opportunities for capacity building as the problems bedeviling the library sub-sector.
To tackle these problems, Dr Okojie said the council is documenting the state of libraries to determine the kind of intervention they need; reviewing curricula of library schools to improve training of professionals that man libraries; organising training programmes to sharpen skills of in-service librarians; partnering private organisations to intervene in libraries, and paying advocacy visits to governors to seek better funding for public libraries.
Explaining the need for intervention in public libraries, many of which are in a sorry state, Dr Okojie said if well-stocked with relevant books and equipped with modern ICT facilities, public libraries can help many more Nigerians acquire knowledge.
When efforts by the council to partner corporate bodies and non-governmental organisations on library improvement begins to yield fruits, Dr Okojie said many libraries across the country would benefit from book donations as well as facilities upgrade such that they can deploy ICT equipment to operate as electronic-libraries.
She said: “We feel that public libraries can become the people’s university if they are well funded, well equipped and if Nigerians are trained to use modern technology like e-library, digital library, ICT to deploy their services. If this is deployed, then the public will be attracted to public libraries in Nigeria and can actually use them the way they are used in more advanced countries.
“We are discussing with some private organisations and the government agencies to see how we can provide the needed support for public libraries in Nigeria. The state of public libraries currently leaves much to be desired.”
Apart from seeking to improve the state of libraries, Dr Okojie said the LRCN is very concerned about entrenching professionalism in the delivery of library services. This, she said, informed the review of the curriculum of library programmes mounted by universities and polytechnics.
“We are working with the National Universities Commission (NUC) to review the curricular of library schools in Nigeria. When this is done and they adopt it, there will be library schools programmes that will make products of these schools able to compete internationally with their peers. The world has become a global village so it is important that we train them to be globally competitive,” she said.
Practising librarians are not left out of the professional development as Dr Okojie said LRCN organises regular training for them.
She said: “We have instituted an annual induction and continuous registration of librarians in Nigeria. We had the last induction on June 4, so, librarians now have a better sense of belonging to a profession that they can be proud about. We have done a lot of capacity building programmes. For instance, we have collaborated with the United States mission in Nigeria on a workshop on e-library for library and information professionals. We also collaborated with the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, on training librarians on free and open software; we have had workshop on quality assurance on health of library; we have had workshop on entrepreneurship because we want librarians to be job creators at a point of leaving school rather than job seekers.”
In terms of visits to libraries, the Registrar said the LRCN has been to many schools in Abuja with a view of ascertaining their needs.
“What we have done so far is to strengthen our monitoring and evaluation unit. We have been going round schools in Abuja for instance to assess the state of their libraries, find out where the skills gap are and to work with the librarians in the schools to find ways in which we can improve the library service delivery,” she said.
