Vol. 12 No. 1 (1987): Nigerbiblios: Vol. 12(1),1987

EDITORIAL COMMENTS

PAYING LIP SERVICE TO LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT

For a very long time now the library and all that it stands for had been taken very lightly by governments of the federation. It is a fact that some of them have endeavoured to establish library boards to oversee proper library development in their areas of jurisdiction. But real development transcends mere provision of boards.

How many of the existing libraries for instance can boast of appreciable budget specifically set aside by their superintending agencies as money available to them for use in a particular financial year? How much penetration into the rural areas have been effected by way of establishing branch and divisional libraries or services to very remote areas through the use of mobile libraries?

Where boards exist, one would like to know what efforts have been made to educate their governments to appreciate the invaluable role the library has to play in the new education policy. Much money for instance, has been pumped into the purchase and installation of technical equipment to enhance the smooth take-off of the new, system. How much of this huge amount was allocated to the library sector? Why has the various governments not shown sufficient enthusiasm in and given priority attention to the establishment of libraries and the importation of library materials badly needed as support services on which the success of the scheme delicately depends, a fact which many of our decision-makers either neglect or are dangerously unaware of?

Nigerbiblios therefore suggests that it is high time the Nigeria Library Association and indeed the National Library of Nigeria sent a delegation to the Federal Government to press home the need for a concerted development of library services side by side with the new education system .A near intractable 'war' like this calls for persistent and sustained strategy, well planned out and prosecuted with such a tenacity as to make the governments acceed to the yearnings of all those who truly believe in education for survival through the use of books as agents of knowledge.