Out of 120 universities in Naija, only five have standardized libraries

Prof. Lenrie O. Aina, Former president of the Nigerian Library Association,NLA,recently in a shocking revelation at Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, said that out of the over 120 university libraries in Nigeria, only five can meet the scholarly standard of a university community.

Prof. Aina said, “Despite this sordid picture, Nigerian universities are engrossed with webometrics ranking.”

The Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Ilorin, UNILORIN, spoke in Ilorin when he delivered the 132nd inaugural lecture of the institution entitled: “Information, knowledge and the gatekeeper.”


 
Prof. Aina said, “Globally, the ranking of a university depends, to a large extent, on its library. A highly ranked university will have a quality university library. It is the repository of information and knowledge. The library is the intellectual heart of a university system.

“In the past, the National Universities Commission,NUC, made it mandatory for federal universities to spend 10 percent of their budgets on their libraries. Unfortunately, many universities, in the last 20 years, have ignored this directive. Rather than spend on university libraries, they are more engrossed in the webometrics ranking of universities.

Dailypost