Redirecting The Focus Of Library Services

Talking about books, what immediately comes to mind is the library. In Anglo-American and former Soviet Union, evidence abound on the role libraries played in their national development. Some writers have attributed Japan’s economic and technological growth since World War II to well developed scientific and technological information centres. In the light of this, one will like to highlight some of the important roles libraries in Nigeria could also play in the present socio-economic development of the country and also bring to the attention of government some of the problems confronting these libraries today.
Library services in this country over the years have largely focused on lending books to users. Today, their services have expanded to include many others such as reference services, interlibrary loan and document delivering services, selective dissemination of information, and services to our rural communities.
Some libraries in Nigeria also have internet-based services that provide access to timely information from remote distances, thanks to information technology.
School libraries can play a very important role in education, which is about helping children to develop their potential to the full through learning and discovering facts themselves.
The government of Nigeria today spends an average of about 24 percent of its current budget on education. The statistics also show that nearly 70 percent of children attend primary schools.
It is very important that during these formative years in the life of the children, they are provided with access to a world of information through the provision of libraries. This will create information- seeking habits in them and stimulate them to discover more of the world around them, thus broadening their horizon. This will obviously improve the quality of our education, leading to a proper manpower resource base for the country.
In Nigeria, very few parents can afford to buy books for their wards. Most students depend on their teachers’ notes for learning and, therefore, know very few little beyond what they are taught in class. A school library can therefore make up for the short coming in class and help to break this textbook tradition, thus complementing the efforts of teachers. For the teachers, it will help their professional development since it will make resources available to them for teaching and research.
One reason why most people do not use public libraries in Nigeria is because they do not develop reading habits in school. Most students today enter institutions of higher learning without knowing how to obtain information. A properly developed school library can, therefore, become a good training ground for students proceeding to higher education where independent and self directed studies are very important.
Public libraries in Nigeria can promote vocational aptitudes of the large number of rural people. It can do this by providing a referral point where people can get information to improve their knowledge and methods in areas such as farming, fishing, small scale industries, animal husbandry and even handicraft.
Secondly, in a society like Nigeria where economic and social factors frequently forces individuals out of school at an early age, and where part-time correspondence and professional courses are scarcely available, public libraries can provide the opportunities for individuals to undertake some self-improvement studies at their own pace and time. Related to the above is the present adult education programme of the government. If public libraries are integrated, they can provide follow-up literature to help these adult graduates retain the capacity they have acquired in order to participate effectively in the democratic process.
It is estimated presently that Nigeria has an illiterate population of over 70 percent who know every little about the economic and social changes taking place hence do not participate in it. If one considers that literacy is a prerequisite for participation in a democratic process, then a well developed public service library will not only be a place where people can do serious studies, but also learn about current development taking place which will make them politically alive.
In Russia, Cuba, Jamaica and Tanzania, public libraries played very active roles in their literacy campaign and Nigeria can learn from the examples of these counties.
Special libraries are very crucial to industrial and commercial development. In the industrialized countries like the US, France, Germany and the UK, they sprang up to meet the demands for support for post-war research activities and to provide the scientific and technical literature needed for development. Nigeria can learn a lot from these countries by developing its special libraries.
The government today has put a lot of companies on the divestiture list due to poor performance. The sad thing is that great amount of grey literature lies waste, whose economic significance has not yet been realized by decision bodies and companies.
A well developed special library system can make available such research results and information, in appropriately packaged forms, for the benefit of government policy- makers, planners, production services, scientific research workers, small scale public manufacturers and industrialists. The resultant effect will be improved methods of production of goods and services which will lead to rapid growth in all sectors of the economy.
Academic institutions are engaged in teaching and research aimed at advancing knowledge in areas such as the social, economic and scientific conditions of a country. It is, therefore, the major source of production of light level manpower as well as research findings which the government depends on for its developmental plans.
Most government sponsored research projects are carried out in academic institutions. A well developed library services will, therefore, provide Industrialists, consultants and scientists, the information resource base they need for their work and save them the labour of looking for information which they cannot find.
An academic library will be good training ground for students. By proving an avenue for finding out information, they will develop in students the habit of finding different approaches to problem solving which will remain with them forever.
Finally, the country needs a national library and information system which will not only coordinate the activities of the other types of libraries, but also provide leadership in the provision of information for national development.
Presently, there are a lot of written works on Nigeria which are not known. A National library with legal depository rights can undertake to collect all such works both in the country and outside and also produce a national bibliography which will represent the nation’s heritage of recorded literature.
Furthermore, national reports, statistics technical and scientific reports which are normally not found in the conventional literature can be preserved by a national library.
Such a library will also maintain a union catalogues of all other existing types of libraries and can, therefore, be relied on for locating information in any part of the country.
In spite of the tremendous contributions that our libraries could make to the social economic development of Nigeria, as highlighted above, libraries in Nigeria today are plagued with a number of problems which need the urgent attention of government.
In Nigeria today, the perception of the role of libraries in socio-economic development is a poor one.

Nkpemenyie Mcdomic