How Libraries Contribute to Communities and Society - Ozean ...

Ozean Journal of Social Sciences 2(3), 2009
ISSN 1943-2577
© 2009 Ozean Publication
How Libraries Contribute to Communities and Society
J. A. Abolaji
Deputy University Librarian
Joseph Ayo Babalola University
Ikeji-Ararkeji
P. M. B. 5006,
Ilesa, Nigeria
E-mail address for correspondence : jabolaji@yahoo.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract : This paper discusses the roles of library as a unifying factor in the community.
It argues that though the school library in a rural area should focus on its primary clientele, it should also extend its
services and resources to other residents of the community in which it is located. The paper then gives a brief
description of the development of mobile and rural libraries in England, United States and Nigeria.
The efforts of some university libraries to achieve the same goal are discussed. It argues that the university libraries
can do better in communities where library services are poor or not available. It also discusses how the advent of
the ICT has transformed library services.
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INTRODUCTION
The modern library is not only a collection of textbooks. It includes other sources like reference materials, books
relating to school curriculum, general books not relating to a specific subject area, periodicals, newspapers, audiovisual
materials, government publications and electronically stored and retrievable materials. These resources enable
libraries to play a crucial role in the success of lifelong education of communities and society in general.
It is a well known fact that education at certain levels goes beyond the normal teacher–student or classroom–student
relationship. Students who really intend to acquire substantial knowledge must work independently in their search
by using reference materials and other sources available in the library. Apart from being agents of educational
change, libraries serve other purposes like economic, social, political and recreational changes because they contain
the written history, culture and knowledge of the human race.
In Nigeria and other developing countries of Africa, government objectives include (a) life-long education for the
citizens as the basis for the nation’s educational policy (b) emphasis on the use and improvement of modern
educational techniques at all levels of the educational system (c) the structuring of education system to develop the
practice of self learning (d)making the people to become actively literate and generally well-informed (e) the
introduction of universal basic and compulsory education for all citizens. In this regard, the African Network
Campaign for Education for All (ANCEFA) stresses the need for serious focus on and investment in formal
education and non-formal education like adult literacy programmes and youth training centres to tackle the literacy
crisis (Olanrewaju 2009). These objectives can be easily achieved with the aid of well-stocked and equipped
libraries in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in addition to the maintenance of public, rural and mobile
libraries across the country. Let us now examine how these libraries can help in the realization of these objectives.
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School Library
Several authors have written on the importance of improving school library services and their roles in providing life
long education for students in secondary schools and tertiary institutions. Ogunsheye (1966), Fadero (1968), Dean
(1969). Sinnette (1969), Akinyotu (1971), Adediran (1971) and Olanlokun (1976) have, among other things, called
on institutions like library schools, universities and ministries of education to come to the aid of school libraries to
enable them to improve on their services. The authors mentioned above have acknowledged school libraries as an
integral part of the school and a teaching aid in supporting the educational programme (Olaosun 1978). Similarly,
Abolaji (1981) emphasized the roles of a school library or media resource centre in making the teaching and
learning of history more lively and interesting to both the teacher and the pupils. He noted that certain materials
which are not within the reach of both the teacher and the pupils, for reasons of cost and availability, should be
provided by the library.
Our suggestion in this paper is that a school library should extend its resources and services to other residents of the
community in which it is located in addition to its primary clientele. This is more crucial in villages and
communities where public libraries are not available.
Almost every rural community in Nigeria, for example, owns a school at least. Some of the schools have one kind of
library or the other. For example, the Bauchi State Government recently embarked on the restocking of all libraries
in the public secondary schools and tertiary institutions across the State. According to Michael (2009), the poor
condition of the public school libraries in Bauchi State informed the decision of the State Government to embark on
mass purchase of relevant textbooks worth over five billion naira for its nursery, primary, post-primary and tertiary
institutions in the state. Conversely, not every village or rural area can boast of the public library or its services. The
reason is that the library has not been actively involved with information transfer activities in rural areas (Aboyade
1987). This is because the policy makers often exhibit the notion that libraries generally are not on their priority list,
how much less libraries for rural areas. This is why a school library should, as much as possible, make its resources
and services available to all residents of the community on equal terms regardless of occupation, creed, age, class or
political inclination. There is a possible way of doing this. A school library can borrow a leaf from what Brown
(1971) saw in one American public library. There teenagers swayed to a rock music concert. People played checkers
or chess in reading rooms. Others talked and laughed. A group of mothers drank coffee and made clothes on donated
sewing machines in a library room. Children acted out a story. All these could take place in any village library that is
funded from taxes paid by residents of a community.
Moreover, it is the responsibility of the village school library to ensure that the products of universal basic education
and adult literacy programmes in the rural area do not lapse into illiteracy soon after the completion of their formal
courses. To achieve this goal, the school library should provide recreational reading materials which are related to
the people’s cultural background. Such materials will interest people with limited knowledge and local interest.
They will also make reading for the people a pleasurable activity and not like another school assignment. The
mobile public libraries, in addition to the school libraries, where they are available, are certainly the best institutions
to provide this service (Ogunsola, 1999). Above all, school libraries have the responsibility of providing literature
within the field of education. It is also their responsibility to supply information and subject reference services. The
basis for these services is a sufficient collection of general and subject-oriented reference works.
Mobile Libraries
According to Orton (1980), the first recorded instance of readers borrowing books from a vehicle in England was
from a horse drawn van in Warrington in 1859. The working men of Warrington, through the offices of the
Mechanics Institute, purchased the van. The van was used mainly within Warrington for the benefit of the working
men who would not go to the Institute Library. It is important to note that the mobile library served a varied clientele
from pre-school age to the elderly thus catering for the information needs of all groups within the community.
Eastwood (1967), in addition, had asserted that ―the first true mobile in England was the converted bus which
Manchester operated from 28 th July, 1931‖. Surprisingly, most county librarians at that time did not accept the idea
of the mobile library as the best way to serve remote areas. The feeling at the time was that the village library was
the centre of the community and should be maintained as the ideal centre of service. Mobiles were considered to
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spoon feed the general reader. This was thought to be undesirable. This was partly due to the influence of the
Carnegie Trust, which was firmly behind the establishment of the village centre library.
Nevertheless, the service was appreciated and used by those living in the rural areas. The mobile service was
enthusiastically supported by users throughout England. In 1976, it was reported that the mobile library gave a far
better selection of books to a community, attracted borrowers from a wider cross-section of the population and
issued more books than a static village centre library.
In the same manner, Gunter (1986) observed that traveling libraries were used to make books accessible to readers
in remote villages and hamlets in England. There had been book deposits over the years and boxes of books were
sent out to be changed at intervals. However, a greater need was recognized to provide a varied collection to the
rural areas on a regular basis. This had developed over the years into a modern van service. The van service
provided the population of rural England with light reading and substantial amount of reference materials as well.
In 1978 a new innovation was introduced to library services in Nigeria. The Rivers State Library Board launched
―M. V. Knowledge I‖ on 21 st March, 1978. It was a mobile library operated in a boat. The boat library attracted
visitors from all corners of the country apart from users in the Rivers State who were the primary clientele.
The boat had a capacity for 2000 volumes. It could also accommodate two Library Assistants, two Sea-men, a
Quartermaster and an Engineering Assistant. Its activities were supervised by a Senior Librarian. ―Three boats were
eventually commissioned to provide library services to the rural areas of the state. The rural areas were divided into
three zones and a boat served each zone. Readers who borrowed books could keep them for a month before they
returned or renew them because it took up to a month for a boat to go round all the towns in a zone‖ (Yobe,1978).
It is clear from the foregoing that wherever a library building is not practical in any community, the bookmobile is
an instrument that can be used to extend library services to every nook and cranny of the community to enable all
segments of a society to enjoy library services. A bookmobile can thus be used to introduce library services to
underserved areas and to give continued services to areas that cannot support permanent library buildings in the
society.
The bookmobile should also operate as an integral part of the public library system. The successful bookmobile has
the same high standard for staff, for book collection and services to be rendered as any other department of the
library system. Services such as charging and discharging of books to readers and enrolment of new readers are
performed at bookmobile centres. Bookmobile also includes reference materials among its collection for rendering
reference services. Services should be offered at a time convenient to the majority of the people in a given area. It is
desirable to provide services during evening hours. Services on Saturdays may be popular in some communities and
should be scheduled wherever possible.
If, however, there is no opportunity of organizing a bookmobile service in a given area, probably as a result of
inaccessibility of the place by easy means of transport, book-boxes should be stationed in centrally located premises
like schools, churches, mosques and town-hall. In such a situation, a teacher or some other interested and
responsible person should be asked to take care of the lending services.
Rural Libraries
Until the 1940s rural library service was identified with extension services. The first rural services were the traveling
libraries administered by state. They were based on a conviction that rural areas were not able to organize and
support their own libraries. Any definition of rural library services must include not only libraries in the rural areas,
but supporting agencies and extension services as well (DeGrutes, 1980).
The history of rural public library services in the United States has been one of constant expansion of services to
unserved populations and formation of larger units of services. There are many obstacles which library services in
the rural areas must overcome. They include scattered population and low population density, poor transportation
and communication systems, lack of financial resources and lower educational levels than in urban areas.
The traveling library of the nineteenth century in the United States was ―a collection of books lent to a community
for general reading. Its purpose was to provide moral and cultural edification rather than research materials. This
was in line with the purpose of small public libraries at that time.‖ There were two types of collections. The first
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types were ―fixed set‖ in which the original combination of books remained unchanged and were rotated among
different communities. The second type were ―open-shelf‖ which were collections made up for a specific
community from a central general collection. Most of the books were fiction, with a few non-fiction titles. The idea
was to encourage reading for the purpose of reading as a wholesome and uplifting recreation. Another interesting
point to note is that the first rural service was not free. Every state except Delaware and California required the
borrowing community to pay at least some of the transportation charges.
As Stith and Klee (1983) have reported, telephone is another important tool that had been used to provide library
services in the rural areas. In this regard, telephone reference service includes all the calls that a library receives
from its patrons. These calls may be request for direction or library hours or request for readers’ services which
require checking the card catalogue or offering interlibrary loan services. Regardless of the level of reference service
executed, every telephone call plays an important role in the library. In the rural setting the telephone’s critical role
is intensified by the library’s geographical isolation from patrons and large libraries.
The picture of rural library service in the developing world is not as bright as the one painted above. Aboluwarin
(1998), Agboola (2000),Ikhizama and Okojie (2001) have documented the efforts of some libraries in information
dissemination in rural areas of Nigeria. Nevertheless adequate attention has not been paid to library services in the
rural areas of Nigeria. As Aboyade (1987) has observed, some librarians argue that because it is not yet possible to
adequately serve the city dwellers, who have the educational capacity to use library services, serving the rural
dwellers, who are mostly illiterate would be a misdirection of efforts. However, the outcome of a modest pilot
project aimed at giving library and information services in a rural setting which Aboyade (1984) set up in Badeku
village near Ibadan in Oyo State of Nigeria has proved that argument wrong.
At Badeku library service was provided in a building that was erected through the efforts of the village women. The
building was often used as a meeting place for the villagers and other research teams. The library team visited the
village on Fridays. Friday was the only work-free day in the village when people could spare some time to use the
library.
The project was an eye opener to the role of the library in the rural area. In the first place, the project has shown that
the information needs of rural dwellers are many and diverse. They include interest to know more about farming,
concern with cultural matters, public affairs and entertainment. Secondly, it has shown that the library can assist
even rural dwellers in a country where the majority of the population are illiterate, but not unintelligent, to realize
their aspirations quickly. Thirdly, it has been realized that non-literate rural dwellers can make effective use of a
sophisticated institution like the library, when it is tailored to their own structure of information demand. For
example, the pilot project gave the people an opportunity to voice out their information needs. It was eventually
found that they were most willing to utilize such information they requested for much better than any other type of
information given to them.
Moreover, it was surprisingly discovered that the villagers could benefit from other aspects of information that are
not so functional. ―Sitting down in a relaxed atmosphere and listening to someone read to them was a completely
new and pleasing experience to nearly all the patrons. In the traditional mode they were the ones required to retell
folktales to children by moonlight. Now they themselves received similar pleasure from modern creative writings.
Consequently, there were demands for more books than the project could afford. That was the only limiting factor to
the new horizon that broke before the people who could not read themselves‖ (Aboyade, 1987)
.
From the above one could see that the cultural purposes of a library are not limited to and appreciated by the refined
members of the society who do not have to spend most of their time, like the rural dwellers, just to make ends meet.
Therefore, reading or listening can play an important role in the beneficial use of leisure, in addition to what rural
people normally do to fill their work-free hours. The library in a rural setting can consciously strive to help people to
cultivate a taste for books and reading.
Above all, the project has demonstrated that the library, through some of its activities, can draw all interested groups
together. This can be done by providing a forum in particular localities where all officials like agricultural extension
officers, rural health personnel, community development officers, home economic agents and political field agents
can obtain reference information and materials for their extension services. They will, through this, get to know and
use other materials that are not produced by their own institutions. This will also enable the library to intervene with
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its own information support for whatever project is going on in the locality. The library will also provide a forum for
mutual interaction among officials at the local level, which may be difficult at their various ministries and
headquarters. To be able to play the coordinating role successfully, the library in the rural area will have to pay more
attention to its own extension activities than is usual in the urban areas.
University Libraries
Some university libraries in Nigeria have taken certain steps to bring together different sections of their
communities. The first is the establishment of Leisure Reading Collection (LRC). Two universities did this several
years ago. In 1967 the University of Ife Library (now called Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife) established an LRC. The idea was copied from the University of Ibadan where such a collection
existed.
The collection covered all subject areas like history, biography, science, religion and philosophy. Current fiction and
drama predominated. At Ibadan students who wished to read books outside their degree programmes for purposes of
information and pleasure used the collection a great deal. More importantly, wives of staff, mainly expatriates,
borrowed immensely from the collection. At Ife, the same principle and similar objectives informed the introduction
of the collection (Dipeolu, 2002). The point to emphasize here is that, with the LRC, the two universities extended
their services beyond the staff and students, whom they were primarily established to serve, to wives of staff, who
were neither students nor staff themselves but members of the university communities. By so doing the libraries also
inculcated the reading and library use habit in those patrons. They also developed in the patrons effective library use
by teaching them the skills and techniques of using a collection of this kind as a basis for library use in later life.
Secondly, the Customary Court Records of Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library has always attracted users from different
parts of the country especially the six states of the South-West. The library inherited the records of all the old
customary courts of the old Western Region of Nigeria from which Lagos State, Ogun State, Oyo State, Osun State,
Ondo State and Ekiti State have been carved out. Today users patronize the library to obtain photo copies of
judgments of cases handled by the customary courts, especially on land disputes, whenever such cases are revisited
in higher courts of the land.
Thirdly, at Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, in Osun State, two of the resources of the library always
bring patrons from different sections of the community together. The first is the e-library, which we shall discuss
more about later. The second is the Reprographic Section. Members of the Ikeji-Arakeji community use this
resource a great deal. In this section the people make photo copies of documents such as birth certificates, drivers’
license, vehicle license and academic certificates. The lamination of the original copies of such certificates is also
done in the section. By this effort the library brings town and gown together.
ICT and the New Library
Libraries all over the world are beginning to be more interactive than passive. ―The coming of ICT into the library
has completely changed the face of the library to more of a social networking centre. This is the only way you can
attract young audience to use the library outside reading to pass examinations‖ (Akinbulumo, 2008). A good number
of public libraries in the developing countries now have restaurants, snacks shop and computer games for the young
audience as well as the adults. The new innovation has shot up the number of young people that use the library or
make the library their second home. This has also cut down on crime rates in some of the countries.
According to Onuoha (2008), the library at Loma Linda University in California has fully redesigned its reading
spaces. They now have ―the quiet library reading area and the interactive areas.‖ In the quiet reading areas you can
hear a pin drop. The interactive reading areas are however different. They have the computer here for browsing.
There is also a vending machine in that section. One can buy drinks and biscuits and take them in the interactive
reading areas. This is so because the computer is interactive and when users go there they want to interact with
others to ask for help on the system and other things. Some patrons actually spend all day working with computers.
That is why the library makes provision for inter-personal interaction and something for the stomachs of those who
want to spend time in the library.
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Moreover, libraries are now going online in droves. According to Bertot(1998), approximately 72 percent of public
libraries in the United States have some type of internet connection. Many patrons now go to those libraries solely
for internet access. Therefore, in order to attract and retain such new patrons, libraries must provide a range of
services that go along with internet access. The most important of these services is training. Ongoing support and
training are essential. This training is necessary not only for patrons but also for staff. Due to increasing prevalence
and popularity of information technologies libraries must train both old and newly hired staff (Holland 1999).
At Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji in Osun State of Nigeria, internet access always draws different
categories of users from all over the university to the e-Library to do one thing or the other. The users include
faculty members, administrative staff members, technical staff members and messengers. Staff and students use the
resources on the internet to do their assignment and research. It is a common sight to see this category of users in the
e-library with their laptops to download information from the internet. Technicians, clerks, and messengers who do
not normally use the resources of other sections of the library such as reference and circulation sections meet at the
e-library to send and receive messages from their friends and relatives at home and abroad via the e-mail. Others
come to read newspapers electronically. This is apart from the physical newspapers like The Guardian and Nigerian
Tribune which also normally attract different categories of users to the library on a daily basis since the year 2006
when the University was established. This is how the library serves as a unifying factor in the community.
Special Services to the Disadvantaged
In order to serve all segments of the community, the library must also pay attention to the disadvantaged members of
the society. Many categories of people fall within this group. But for the purpose of this paper we shall concentrate
on the sick in hospital, inmates of penal institutions, the aged and the physically handicapped.
It is true that the library cannot directly restore good health to the sick or bring about the release of a prisoner or
restore youth to the old, nevertheless there are other ways the library can help these people. There is no doubt that
reading can make time fly faster than lying down hours on end in the hospital bed doing nothing. Some long-term
patients may be interested in serious reading for the first time while they are in the hospital because they have more
leisure hours than they had before being hospitalized. If they have an opportunity to read, they will appreciate
library services and may continue to use the library when they recover. Moreover, some patients might have been
regular library users before they were admitted into the hospital. This category of patients should not be denied
library services because they are now in the hospital. By extending its services to the hospitaliszed, a library like the
Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library Annex at Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Complex in Ile-Ife will enable
non-users of the library to become aware of the existence of a library that has many books on many subjects. A
library assistant in that library can take a trolley of books to different wards in the hospital at regular intervals to
cater for the patients.
Nowadays, the inmates of many prisons include not only illiterates and semi-literates but also highly educated
people. Some well-educated and notable scholars, who found their way into prisons for one reason or the other,
wrote interesting and fast-selling books when they were in prison. A glaring example is Nigeria’s Nobel laureate,
Wole Soyinka, who wrote The Man Died, when he was in prison. Prison inmates should, therefore, be provided with
library services like other members of the society. Those who have imbibed the reading culture before incarceration
should be given ample opportunity to continue to read. Those who have not formed the reading habit before
imprisonment should be taught to acquire the culture of literacy. This will greatly help in reforming, rehabilitating
and reintegrating them into the society after their discharge from prison.
Until recently, most of the prisons and correctional institutions for the young in Nigeria have no libraries of their
own. However, history was made in the welfare package of prison inmates in Nigeria on 25 th May, 2001. On that
day, the first ultra modern reading room and literacy centre for prison inmates was commissioned at the Ilesa Prison.
The literacy centre is equipped with the state of the art books and computer hardware and software to enable the
inmates to benefit from the literacy empowerment goal of the Non Governmental Organization that set up the centre.
The reading room and literacy centre was named after Heinrich Boll who was one time a prisoner. The story of
Heinrich Boll has shown that incarceration cannot hinder an individual from actualizing his / her goals in life.
Although Boll suffered incarceration, in 1978, he won the Nobel Prize for literature. This shows that to any inmate,
the sky is the limit, if the individual so desires. The reading room in Ilesa was set up to enhance the self esteem of
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the inmates and give them a taste of beauty (Onukaogu, 2001). It is hoped that other well-meaning Nigerians will
replicate the reading room and literacy centre in other prisons in the country.
In addition, gifts of books of which a library has enough copies can be sent to prisons and similar institutions as part
of their permanent collections. The same thing should be done with magazines which are in good physical
conditions and of fairly recent date. Old magazines or shabby books should not be sent to these institutions, because
they are likely to cause resentment and do more harm than good. A prisoner or a juvenile delinquent may regard
such cast-offs as an insult.
Services to the Aged
The public library can help the aged to obtain needed information or pass their leisure hours with greater
contentment by extending its services to them. This can take the form of providing them with books, newspapers,
magazines and video cassettes which they can listen to in their private homes. On the other hand, the library can cooperate
with philanthropic organizations in charge of old peoples’ home.
Services to the Physically Handicapped
There are two ways by which the library can help this category of people. First, the library can employ the
physically handicapped wherever the handicap does not prevent them from performing behind-the-scene routine
tasks. This has two advantages. It will enable the handicapped to augment their means of livelihood. It will also
enable the library staff to concentrate on technical and professional duties.
Secondly, literate classes should be provided for the visually handicapped as part of the public library services to
this section of the community. With the availability of personnel, a professional librarian could pursue a course on
how to teach with materials in Braille. The talking-books, tape and players could also be used. This operation can be
carried out in conjunction with voluntary organizations responsible for the care and education of the blind. The
specially trained librarian in this field will be able to disseminate his knowledge to this group and place the right
book in the right hand at the right time.
The purpose of library activities to the disadvantaged especially the aged and the handicapped is to develop the
ability left and encourage the individual to accept disability and make the best of the situation. Above all, the
approach to the disadvantaged must be personal and individual. A librarian who is used to working mainly with the
advantaged needs adequate in-service training to understand the points of view and reactions of the disadvantaged.
Prejudices, intolerance and fears must be eliminated. Only those members of staff who develop patience, sympathy
without sentimentality and perseverance should be assigned special work with the disadvantaged.
CONCLUSION
From the foregoing discussion, we can see how different kinds of libraries can serve as a melting-pot for the
divergent social, political, cultural and religious interests in the society and like Caesar’s wife ―be above board‖. But
in order to maintain this achievement, the library must continue to provide good services to the student, the
researcher, the pleasure-seeker and the illiterate farmer. At the same time, it must continue to embrace the large
segment of the population it has often missed—those who are far-removed from the library premises, the shut-ins
and the disadvantaged. Towards this end, traditional services should not be neglected because of out-reach activities,
nor should outreach activities be neglected because of the rising demand for traditional services. Above all, it is my
opinion that university libraries can do more than what we discussed above especially in a community where library
services are poor or not available. A right step in this direction was taken by a group of professional librarians from
Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library. The group, under the auspices of the Nigerian Library Association, organized a
training programme to teach secondary school teachers in the neighborhoods on how to run effective school
libraries. Such a good foundation should be sustained. For instance, Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library should continue
the practice of donating light reading materials to secondary school libraries in Ile-Ife and other neighbouring towns.
It should also continue to donate excess copies of reading materials to new university libraries that now spring up all
over the state. These include Osun State University, Osogbo, Fountain University, Osogbo and Joseph Ayo Babalola
University, Ikeji-Arakeji.
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