CHALLENGES OF COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA PUBLIC LIBRARIES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The main objective of establishing any library is to satisfy the needs of its clientele by providing the materials relevant to their needs in orders to achieve the aim of setting up library, adequate collection required by the users should be made available to them at the right time. It is necessary to beef up the collections of library from time to time so that appropriate library materials are made available to users.

Collection development is the beefing up of collection to satisfy the needs of users. Harrods librarians Glossary (2000) defined collection development as the process of planning a stock acquisition programmes not simply to cater for immediate need but to build a coherent and reliable collection over a number of years to meet the objective of the services.Collection development must be planned as to cater for needs of the users. The planning should be based on immediate and future needs to project into the future to find out possible needs of the users because the society is dynamic. The need of the users changes considerably over the years. In addition the quality of stock and others issues that will help in achieving the objectives of collection development like: adequate staffing, staff training funds etc. are also taken into consideration Evans (1979) defined collection development as the process of identifying the strength and weaknesses of a library’s material collection in terms of patrons needs and community resources and attempting to correct existing weakness if any “collection development helps the library to know the subject areas that are lacking behind and the areas, which have enough materials. In order to identify the strength and weakness of the library collection, regular evaluation of library materials and study of the needs of library clienteles should be carried out.Thus, collection development includes everything that goes into acquiring materials including selection, ordering and payment. It is a chain of events that includes planning, administration, and control, collection development serves as a foundation upon which other library service are built. Public library, this is library that services the public, UNESCO (1960) defined public popular libraries as those, which serves the population of community or region free of charge or for a normal fee. They may serve the general public or special categories of the public such as children; members of the armed forces, hospital patients, prisoner’s workers and employees.Public libraries in the real sense started in Nigeria as a result of UNESCO seminar that was held in 1933. This resulted to the establishment of eastern regional library board in 1955, which was a UNESCO P. lot pubic library project that had legal backing. Many states have public library’s backed by law (Colankun and Salisu 1993) Nigeria, the establishment of public libraries is the responsibility of the various states. The states promulgate enabling laws or acts that gives legal backing to the libraries. They specifies the funding, administration and other duties. Generally, a public library is a social institution and as such it is tied to the political and social realities of the political and social realities of the community of which it is a part. Public libraries differ in their functions and aims from one community to the other, one culture to another. Nevertheless a public library is usually a place where people go for all kinds of knowledge. The public library is often regarded as the poor man’s university. Its clientele is heterogeneous devoid of race, status, ranks bias as who would avail of its services. It stocks every conceivable item that would and to knowledge’s education, research information and culture needs of the society. The public library is expected to be culture centers that will serve the need of non-literature the various states cater for acquisition, cataloging and other activities in the library. The public libraries in Nigeria are bedeviled by poor funding, poor patronage, a result of death of current materials, accommodation problem, poor reading habit on the part of the clientele, lack of staff motivation etc.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The Nigeria public libraries are designed to serve the general public, irrespective of their background, sex, age, states and religious. In order to achieve the aim of setting up a public library, adequate collection required by the users should be made available to them at the right time. Considering the purpose of establishing a public library. It is necessary to beef up the collections of the public library from time to time so that appropriate library materials are made available to the users. Now for the Nigeria public libraries to provide good service to their patron, at require finance to beef up the collections of the public library, but due to scarcity of funds most of purpose of having public libraries are not undertaken at all.Also the problems of gifts and exchanged affects collections development in Nigeria public libraries, the preponderance of gift received in public libraries are not relevant to the needs of the users. Large proportions of those gifts are book, discovered from libraries in oversea countries that do not suit the local situation. When the materials exchanged are loaded in favour of one library the exchange agreement is usually terminated. The exchanged programme is supposed to be a symbiotic relationship that benefits all the libraries involved in the agreement.

The above stated problems and lot more has affected the collection development in Nigeria public libraries, which has laded inadequate supply of library collection.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

1.       The general aims of this project is to find out the problems of collection development in Nigeria .

2.       To find out the state of collection development in Nigeria libraries.

3.       To identify the problems of collection development in Nigeria public libraries

4.       To identify solution to the problems of collection development.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTION

The following questions have been prepared for the study

1)      Are there collectors for public university libraries in Nigeria?

2)      What is  collection development?

3)      Are there  challenges of collection development in Nigeria?

4)      Are there solutions to the problems of collection development?

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this study is to help in following ways.

1.       Help in supplying adequate library materials and making them available at the right time.

2.       It helps to know the needs and demands of library patrons in search of information.

3.       It helps in carrying out community analysis.

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study is focused on the problem of collection development with emphasis on Nigeria public libraries, the study will also examine the inherent problem to the issues of collection development of public libraries.hence it will be delimited to librarians in Enugu state library board, central library

1.7     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This study was constrained by a number of factors which are as follows:

 just like any other research, ranging from unavailability of needed accurate materials on the topic under study, inability to get data

Financial constraint , was faced by  the researcher ,in getting relevant materials  and  in printing and collation of questionnaires

Time factor: time factor pose another constraint since having to shuttle between writing of the research and also engaging in other academic work making it uneasy for the researcher

1.8     DEFINATION OF TERMS

Collection:

It is the means by which information items or materials are finding in the libraries .

Development:

It is the means of assembling of materials to insure that the collection is good enough to certify the collection by up dating the library with qualitative books.

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