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

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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