Uthman Abubakar
3 July 2007
Kaduna — Jemimah Markus Adams, a 200 level student, does not have to bother combing all the relevant book shelves in the Ahmadu Bello University main library, Kashim Ibrahim Library (KIL) or any other library, frantically or in the guard-of-honour-inspection fashion, to fish out a text book or journal to do some researches or assignments, or make some references on any of the course units she offers.
Whenever necessary, she goes to the library shelves. If she finds the material - textbook or journal - she needs, good! If she does not, she will not develop a headache, despair or worry at the thought of having to do the research, assignment or reference by some other devices, and face the lecturer with her failure to source the material she is referred to. After all, most of the relevant materials for her course of discipline now have either gradually vanished from most library shelves, or have been outdated by monumental quantities of new discoveries and wider frontiers of knowledge and information in the field of discipline globally. Virtually, hard copies of updated materials are no more acquired for the libraries. So, she seeks solace in the internet, where she sources most of her materials.
Economic and global technological developments, most prominently, Information Communication Technology (ICT), are having tremendous impacts on Nigeria's library system, portraying it as collapsing or transforming, depending on the conception and perception of the traditional values and functions of library one holds.
The impact of each of these factors depend on and vary according to the nature and statutory functions of each type of library in the country's development system. More striking are developments in the libraries of universities and higher institutions and the national library.
The current situation of university libraries, for example, is partly deplorable due to the depreciation of the value of the country's currency, the Naira, in foreign exchange, and the virtual paucity of funds for the regular acquisition of hard copies of materials - textbooks, journals and all other necessary research and learning materials; and partly gladdening, due to the transformation they are undergoing from their age-old essentially hard-copies form, to the electronic or digital form, thanks to the ICT.
"In the entire library system, university libraries have better funding generally. They were well funded previously by the National Universities Commission (NUC)," Professor Doris Bozimo, the Ahmadu Bello University Librarian, recalled, lamenting, "But because of this foreign exchange we are now experiencing, we find that whatever amount of Naira we have, by the time we change it to Dollars or Pounds, we get very few books, and right now, there is very little funding for university libraries, because Vice Chancellors are not even able to pay salaries."
Complaining passionately of very little funding, she admitted that university libraries in the country now, do not take normal delivery of books and other volumes "because generally, funding for the universities has dropped drastically. So a lot of their libraries do not have the resources to buy the books. 95% of the books universities use are imported, and we don't have the funds to buy them. Very few university libraries now buy books from abroad, because the resources are simply not there. We have some books online, but they are very few."
She recalled that during the tenure of Professor Idris Abdulkadir as the Executive Secretary of the NUC, there was a mandatory 10% cut from the recurrent funds accruing to the universities channelled to their libraries. "With those funds we were able to expand and buy books and journals. Because we are not a computer literate society, you cannot immediately abandon books and journals in hard print."
She complained: "But things have changed now. The 10% is no more coming, and this is affecting the system seriously. No provision is made for university libraries these days, which means, virtually, no hard copies of materials are acquired by the libraries. The electronic resources are our saving grace."
ABU students now pay N500 each at every registration for the running of the library system. "The cumulative amount is hardly enough to buy books, but we are able to run the library system. We have no funds from the NUC."
Professor Bozimo said what most university libraries now have in longer quantities are journals, which, according to her, they need more than any other material for teaching, learning and research "because they are current, and you need currency when you are teaching and learning."
Luckily, however, she said, some university libraries in the country, including her own KIL, have funding from donor agencies like the McArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation and, to some extent, the Rockefeller Foundation. "These foundations have been able to invest heavily on ICT in some designated university libraries, and the ABU library is one of them. So we are able to have a lot of electronic resources donated to us free of charge. And whenever there is connectivity, we are able to access online and download whatever we need for teaching, research and learning."
The library now teaches the academic staff and postgraduate students the use of the various electronic resources. "We teach them the resources in their particular areas, and how to access materials in the fields where they can download full texts of journal articles." Universities without donor agencies request to use the electronic resources possessed by those assisted by such agencies, because under the circumstances all university libraries in the country have to work together with mutual help. "University libraries in the country have formed a consortium so that we can work together. Anyone in need of anything can write to anyone that has it, and it will be provided."
Dr. Kabiru S. Chafe, the Dean of ABU's Faculty of Arts, is the university's Director of ICT Services. "The ICT is going to revolutionalise the entire library system. It is going to change it completely. There may still be hard copies. Even in the US the ICT does not eliminate hard copies. People can still get the hard copies and read them. But this (ICT) development makes the traditional library system archaic, old-fashioned and cumbersome. Eventually, the traditional system will be overtaken by the electronic/digital system. It may not completely be shelved, because even as relics, you may need these hard copies of books. They are part of the material culture. People will still need them."
Nicholas is an undergraduate in the History department. He spoke on the thinning traffic of people to libraries in recent years, due to the less cumbersome process of learning, research and reference offered by the electronic library system of the ICT, and the ever depleting number of the needed hard copies of materials ensured by the weakening economy.
"We are in the modern times when everything is done with the computer," he observed, continuing, "Most people either have internet facilities at home, and are connected or have easy access to it in the café. So they see coming to the library as a distraction. Since they have places where they can get their knowledge and information, they don't necessarily come to the library. Most students see it convenient to do their things personally, not necessarily coming to the library, because when they come there are too many students, the computer has broken down, or the materials they are looking for are not available."
He observed that the ABU libraries are outdated. "They don't update their materials. So, when you are dealing with recent things, you hardly get them in the libraries. You have to go to the café to access your resources. I strongly believe such technological developments as the ICT are threatening the traditional library system in Nigeria."
Jemimah is always baffled at the inability of the university to acquire most of the books her Archaeology course needs for the library. "In a course like Archaeology, for which you need more recent books, information and data, by the time you get to the library, you find some ancient books instead, while the lecturers will always tell you that they need relevant books published from 1980 to date. When you get to the library, you only see books published in the 1960s and 1970s, which are no more relevant."
According to her, Archaeology students now source most of their materials in the internet as they try to source for textbooks by some devices.
"So, ICT is affecting the traditional library system as we know it, because most times, the lecturers will tell you: "go to the net, go to the net." Others will tell you: "go to the books," and if there are no recent books, you have to go to the net to get your materials. Again, we have a dilemma. The materials we get on the internet don't really go deep on the required knowledge, and so you still have to use the outdated books, which the lecturers still don't want."
Helpus Vine is a 400 level Microbiology student. For him, the ICT and the traditional hard-copy-stocked library are complementary. "There are some materials you need, but you can't access in the library. So, you go to the internet."
According to Helpus, the inability of government to fund education adequately, by providing all needed hard-copy materials in the libraries, is having a negative impact on the libraries, because most of the books in them are outdated. "So you only have to go to the internet. In some instances, even if you go to the net, you don't really gain access to the book, unless you subscribe for it."
The National Library system has its peculiar situation determining whether it is decaying or transforming. Its vital statutory functions, apart from offering opportunities for reading, research and references, include issuing the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) to newspapers, magazines, journals, charts, maps, cassettes, diskettes; and the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for books on application. All these materials are prone to piracy and, therefore, protected by copyright law. With these standard numbers the library compiles the national bibliography of publications every year.
However, while the library issues the standard numbers, it advises the publishers and manufacturers of the materials, to contact the Copyright Commission to get their works protected by law.
When the National Library issues such numbers accordingly, it communicates such to UNESCO. Consequently, the material becomes the only one known and identified as bearing that particular name and or that particular content of information, with the serial or book number issued it all over the world. The number gives the publishers or original owners of the material, the legal backing to sue on any piracy on its material.
Every publication or material must also make a legal deposit of each copy of its material according to the frequency of publication or manufacture to the National Library, bearing the ISSN/ISBN, volume number and date. Under the legal deposit law, the Federal Government is to legally deposit 25% of its publications, State Governments, 10% and the private sector, 3% of its publications to the National Library.
However, according to impeccable sources at the National Library, Kaduna, government, at both the federal and state levels, is the major defaulter of the legal deposit law by failing to deposit the statutory percentage of its publications to the library. Many of the vital terms of the law itself, which has been in operation since the 1960s, have become irrelevant or insufficiently forceful. For example, its defaulters are still fined a few pounds, which, when changed to Naira on the basis of the originally intended value, is virtually not punitive. As a result, it is said to be presently before the National Assembly for amendment.
Many publishers and manufacturers of materials tend to slight the library on the securing of standard numbers, by either not deeming it necessary to apply for them, or not printing them on the materials, at least according to the frequency. There is still no legislation compelling such publishers and manufacturers to secure and ensure the printing of the numbers before marketing or circulating them. Currently, the library can only enlighten publishers on the value of the numbers, and persuade them to secure them. It cannot force them to do so.
In the reading aspect, the National Library shares problems with all other types of libraries.
Stephen Egwu is an HND Accounting student at the Kaduna Polytechnic. "In those days, when you walk into the library you get whatever categories of books for your research. Suddenly, the books began to vanish. You hardly find the books you want. The government should restock the library, because most of the hardcopies of materials needed are gradually getting out of stock," he offered, while studying at the National Library, Kaduna.
He admitted that computer browsing is negatively affecting the library system in the country, "but not everybody goes to the internet café, because of the payment for services there."
Abdullahi Maikano is an independent researcher on Accounting and Investment in Kaduna. He spoke on the traffic of people visisitng the National Library. "Honestly, there is a drop in the traffic of people due mainly to the economy. Transportation is part of the problem. Majority of those coming here to read are students who seldom have enough money to transport themselves to and fro." The traffic is determined by the time of examinations. During examinations, the traffic is thicker. After examinations, it becomes thinner."
Positively or negatively, depending on various conceptions and perceptions, economic situations, ICT and government policies and programmes and emerging attitudes by both governmental and private organisations and the public, are having heavy impact on the library system in the country. Consequently, different sections of the public could view the system as gradually collapsing, partly collapsing or transforming for the better, according to emerging global imperatives.
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