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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

The library is a strong research base of any institution where age long information is preserved for diverse purposes. Nigeria is a country with different institutions and each of them has an academic library (Lawal 2007, p:5). The presence of the library makes it easy for any researcher to gather information necessary in the course of the research and for students to gather more knowledge. Due to how important the library is, the National Universities Commission (NUC) embarks on a routine check to ensure Nigerian libraries are well equipped for both the students and lecturers use.

The library bearing its functions in mind is meant to provide adequate services to its users; though the reverse seems to be the case in Nigerian universities’ library as there are no new books on the shelves, dilapidated structures and very important materials are stolen from the library (Ojoade and Ochai, 2000). However, funding for libraries in Nigeria has been of much concern to researchers. The limited resources cannot meet the human needs on the ground; and that is why when the Federal government allocates fund to the universities before such funds will be shared with the various divisions of the university, the library will be left out. As a result of this, most institutions still have outdated books/materials in their libraries, lecturers are not sponsored to embark on meaningful researches and even to attend seminars. Due to the fact that funding is a major issue in maintaining the library, it now beholds on the librarians to source for other means to maintain the library as the government is not performing well to achieve this; and the truth still remains that funding drives the effectiveness of a library. Meanwhile, in this 21st century, there is a need for the sophistication of information.

With the advent of information and communication technology (ICT), there is much need to review the library system of Nigeria, in other to keep users up to date; as users are now very conscious of their environment that they need to be updated as time passes by (Etim (2004) cited in Okon 2005). However, Nigerian libraries are seriously struggling to meet up with these current needs of the users as fund is posing a great challenge. The current economic situation of the country has equally affected the funding as well as, the maintenance of Nigerian libraries as the cost of foreign books is on the increase; due to the scarcity of foreign exchange. The problem is severe bearing in mind that Federal institutions are funded by parent institutions through National universities commission (NUC) and by the Federal government.

In the 80s, about 5% was allocated by the Federal government for libraries, but this allocation was increased in the mid 90s to about 10%, of which it was given directly to the Library Development Fund (LDF); though the bad news is that the Library Development Fund (LDF) has been scrapped out from the budget (Olanlokun and Adekanye, 2005 p: 145). Thus, each university decides on what to give to its library. When an assessment was carried out to ascertain if the said 10% is allocated to university libraries, it was discovered that many federal universities have not received the allocated fund, in the state university it is about who knows who in government to help fight in other to get the said allocation and while in the private university, it is the founders that determine what goes into the funding of the library. It is, therefore, pertinent for academic libraries in Nigeria to engage in diverse means of generating revenue for the upkeep of the libraries, rather than depending on the government. An introspective look into internal means of generating revenue for the maintenance of the library will go a long way in achieving the purpose for which it was set up, and this study is meant to discover those ways.

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