ABSTRACT
This work investigated the management of university libraries in the North Central Zone of Nigeria. Accordingly, six research objectives were drawn which include; to examine the planning processes in the university libraries; to identify the methods used in organising library and information resources; to ascertain the measures employed in the management of human resources in these libraries. Others are to: examine the measures used for effective control of the library operations; identify the problems encountered in the management of university libraries and proffer strategies to enhance effective management of university libraries in Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted for the study with a population of 51 library staff. The questionnaire titled “Management of University Libraries questionnaire (MULQ), consisted of 77 items was the instrument used to collect data. Data generated and analysed was presented in tables using percentage and the mean. Findings showed among others that each of these university libraries has a written collection development policy, clearly developed policy statement and goals for each section, has a written job specification for staff, prepares and executes budget. Shelving is the most adequate method used in organising information resources, disciplinary measures are in place to check staff behaviour and there is regular supervision of staff. The major problem in the management of university is adequate funding and insufficient professional staff. Following these findings, recommendations were made to the effect that university management should ensure the provision of adequate and decent library accommodation and facilities that would enhance proper storage of library collections and facilitate library services, adequate, qualified and competent professionals and support staff should be employed to enable the library meet her service demand to her community, adequate funds should be provided to the library to facilitate its services.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Libraries are traditional information service institutions established to serve the information needs of their immediate communities, be it national, public, academic, schools, special, research and private libraries. The category of users a library serves defines the nature of its collections and the type of services offered. For a library to successfully select, acquire, organise (process), store (preserve), retrieve and disseminate information, there would be need for proper management of both human and material resources. The major aim of library management is to create and maintain a high quality service that will match the needs of its users.
Generally, University libraries are categorised as part of academic libraries. Ekere in Department of Library and Information Science (2006) defines academic libraries as “all libraries attached to post secondary or tertiary institutions, such as Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, Colleges of Agriculture, and Military institutions like the Nigerian Defence Academy, the Nigeria War College, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies and to any other post secondary institution”. Academic libraries are grouped into two; University and College libraries, that is they vary and are distinct according to the academic institutions they serve. Harrod (1995) defines university library as a library or group of libraries established, maintained, and administered by a university to meet the needs of its students and members of the academic staff.
The main purpose of the university library is to support the objectives of the university, which is to promote teaching, learning and research. Thus, the library is meant to serve the undergraduates, postgraduates, lecturers, researchers and other members of the
university community. Achebe (2008) asserts that the materials are diversified to support teaching and other programmes students and teachers are engaged in.
A university library is regarded as the heart of the intellectual life of the university. The quality of a university is measured largely by the quality of its library. Azikwe, in Aguolu (1997), pointing out the importance of university libraries declared that “the development of the universities will depend to a large extent upon the provision of fully- equipped libraries and laboratories… we cannot emphasize too strongly the paramount importance… of building up of a university library”.
The fact is that no university can exist without a library. Since the university is meant to teach, and carry out research; it will have to rely solely on the library, which is the custodian of knowledge. For the undergraduates, the library is supposed to provide information materials and services specifically designed to meet their learning information needs, and for the postgraduate students, teaching staff and research fellows, the university library is supposed to provide information resources and services of sufficient quality and diversity to assist them in research and teaching.
In most universities, there is always a large central library, often spoken of as the main library of the university, and there are often smaller ones at the faculty and departmental levels. The main library coordinates the activities of the smaller ones. For a university library to perform its several functions, its collections must not only include books but other information materials such as general and specialised reference collections, made up of encyclopaedias, journals, newspapers, manuscripts, government publications, historical maps, theses, audio-visual and digital information materials, etc.
University library collections are usually large, they relate their choice of acquisitions to the programmes of teaching learning and research in their institutions; the academic level of the material naturally varies according to the levels of users. For a university library to
properly organise such large collections for easy accessibility by the various group of users, it must have highly qualified librarians that will carry out such tasks in each departments of the library. That is why the highest calibre of librarians is usually found working in university libraries, with specialization in different fields and specific aspects of Library and Information Science. Such tasks can be performed through selection, acquisition, organisation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information to library users. This can only be achieved through proper management.
The concept “Management” has been defined by many authors, though using different approaches, but all geared towards the same or related meaning. Macfarland (1979) in Obi (2003) defines management as “the process by which managers create, direct, maintain and operate purposive organisations through coordinated, cooperative human efforts”. This definition implies three (3) ideas; firstly, management is dynamic, secondly, management activities are continuous, thirdly, managerial action directs and controls the nature, extent and pace of activities in the organisation.
According to Fayol in Wales (2010), “To manage is it forecast and plan, to organise, to command, and to control”. The Wikipedia (2010) defines management as “the guidance and control of action required for executing a programme, also, with the individuals charged with the responsibility of conducting the program”. This implies that, for management to be effective there needs to be some type of defined approach or system in place. This system becomes the plan and management is guiding others to follow the plan. It points out that this is where most managers fail, because they have no plan or system. As a result their actions seem random to the people they are managing and this leads to confusion and disappointment. This is why it is important for business managers to have an employee manual providing direction; managers will struggle to be fair and balanced in dealing with employees. Shead (2010),
management characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organisation, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, intellectual or intangible)…. He further defines management thus:
Management in all business areas and organisational activities are acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organising, staffing, leading or directing, and control an organisation (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for accomplishing tasks.
This definition of management addresses accomplishing work through other people. It stresses the activities that are necessary for reaching particular goals. The process of achieving the objectives of the business organization by bringing together human, physical, and financial resources in an optimum combination and making the best decision for the organization while taking into consideration its operating environment.
For the purpose of this work, one can simply define management as the process of getting things done efficiently with and through other people. This can be achieved by setting and achieving goals through executing the five basic management functions: planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling, that utilize human, financial and material resources. Thus, no organisation like the university library can operate successfully without proper management.
Harrod, (1995), defines library management as “the technique of organising priorities, motivating staff, securing resources, and evaluating performance in order to obtain the optimum efficiency and benefit from a library services”. Library management is defined using the five management principles: planning, organisation, staffing, directing and control. Echezona (2009) and Ngalla (2007) described planning role in the library that it entails laying the platform on which all other roles are played. This involves defining the objectives, developing strategies, determining the staffing and library services, laying down policies and procedures for attaining the objectives and preparing budgets. When the planning stage of management is set right, there is the need for the organisation role to be effective.
Wikipedia (2010) also describes library management as the issues involved in managing a library. Such basic issues include:
– Planning the acquisition of materials
– Classification of materials
– Preservation of materials
– Borrowing materials
– Developing and administrating library computer systems
The short term library management issues include; book processing, selection, ordering, receiving, checking, stamping, classification and cataloguing, labelling, preparation for circulation, jacketing, final inspection and stacks maintenance.
While long- term issues in library management include issues like:
– Planning of the construction of new libraries
– Extensions to existing ones
– Building maintenance
However, no effective management can be operational in any library set up if the objectives are not clearly formulated and well understood by staff and patrons. The primary objectives of a library as enumerated by Ifidon and Ifidon (2007) are to:
1. Provide informational materials for all the patrons of different levels
2. Provide general reading materials for personal self-development and
3. Co-operate with other libraries with a view to developing a network of informational resources that will be at the disposal of all users regardless of distance.
They further stated, “These objectives are equally translated into Collection Development department, Technical Services department, Research Collection and Systems Development department and Readers’ Services department. Each of these departments is
further organised into divisions and units. The existence of these objectives compels the managers to think of how to realize them, i.e. the human and financial resources they require and the target date for achievement.”
After the formulation of the objectives, the next step is planning. It involves the interpretation of the objectives into an effective action plan. In planning, library managers take into consideration the needs of their library users and the requirements of materials and human resources, the new technology and other resources in the external environment, since most libraries depend solely on government for financial support. Universities have institutional autonomy that gives them the freedom to allocate financial resources based on internally established priorities, and because of the competitive demands on the limited budgets, academic departments and faculties tend to lose sight of the academic support role which the library plays; its budget is easily diverted to other purposes with repose, Ifidon (2007). In this case, the university Librarian would have no option than to respond to any change that occurs during the planning stage.
Organisation is all about the organisational structure of the various sections of the university library, it also involves the processing of library and information materials such as cataloguing, classification, digitization, shelving, indexing and abstracting and preservation of information resources. Staffing entails the personnel component of the university library, recruiting enough professional staff that would enhance the provision of library and information services, organising training programmes for better job performance and retention of staff. While the control role is all about regular inspection of all the activities of the library staff, as tasks are assigned to them; the librarian should guide and correct them where necessary, this is to ensure that quality services are provided by the library.
The most serious challenge facing the university library managers is securing constructive change and improvements in the library performance. Every organisation must
grow and develop in order to successfully accommodate a changing environment, and libraries are not exception. (Guskin and Marcy (2002) opined that:
If libraries are to succeed as active partners in the institutional programmes of universities, they must be sensitive to changing conditions both within their internal structure and external environment…. Also, the library must move toward a more assertive role within the community it serves, influencing university plans, programmes and priorities rather than simply coping with events as they occur.
The management of university libraries has become increasingly important because of their growing size and complexity, there is high demand of their services, yet the cost of library and information materials is beyond their budgets. Hence the need for the library managers to confront the challenge to maintain the operations, services, and collections in the face of the rising cost and relatively stable or declining budgets. This can be achieved through proper planning; especially making choices and setting priorities for the expenditure of increasingly limited resources. Saka (2010) says “in every organisation or institutions, there are various objectives set aside to be achieved”. These objectives could be adequately achieved when human and material resources are properly managed.
For the purpose of this study, management of university libraries can then be described as the process of achieving the objectives of the university library by planning, organising priorities: motivating staff, acquisition, processing, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information, and consequently, evaluating the performance of staff. This can only be accomplished by performing the management functions of planning, organising, staffing, directing, and control of library activities. Management of university libraries is all about setting desired objectives, leading or directing library staff to work towards achieving the desired results, which invariably will help the university realise its aims and objectives. Statement of the Problem
Proper management of university libraries is an ingredient to achieving of their desired goals and objectives. Where a university library is effectively managed, it will
positively affect every aspect of the library operations; information materials will be properly organised for easy accessibility by users; right measures would be employed in management of the human resource in terms of selection, employment, training and retraining and retention of staff. A good working environment will offer job satisfaction to library staff, and consequently lead to high productivity. Nevertheless, if management were poor, the result would be low productivity thereby defeating the purpose of establishing the university library. These range from their inability to easily locate information materials placed on the shelves, relevant journals abstracts are acquired without their corresponding full text documents, there is lack of indicators or indexes to journal articles which are the “hot cake” in scholarly research, unfriendly attitude of staff, absentee staff and “I don’t know response from staff”. These symptoms suggest that the management of many university libraries is not effectively discharged. If these issues are not properly addressed, university libraries stand the risk of losing the patronage of their users. This may lead to decline in the quality of teaching, learning and research. This is why this study is set out look into the management of university libraries in North central Zone of Nigeria.
Purpose of the Study
The general purpose of the study was to investigate the management of university libraries in the North Central Zone of Nigeria. The study was guided by the following specific objectives:-
1. To examine the planning process in the university libraries in the North Central Zone of Nigeria
2. To identify the methods used in organising library and information resources in university libraries.
3. To assess the management of human resources in the university libraries.
4. To examine the control measures adopted to ensure effective control of library operations.
5. To identify the problems encountered in the management of university libraries.
6. Suggest ways to enhance effective management of university libraries in Nigeria
Research Questions
The following research questions guided this study:
1. How effective is the planning of university libraries in the North central Zone with regards to success of programmes and achievement of desired objectives?
2. What are the methods of organisation of library and information resources in university libraries?
3. What are the measures employed in the management of human resources?
4. What are the control measures adopted to ensure effective library operations?
5. What are the problems associated with the management of university libraries?
6. In what ways can the management of university libraries be improved?
Significance of the Study
The findings of this study will be useful to the university libraries in Nigeria, as it would enlighten them on what an ideal university library management is in terms of resources, staffing and services.
The study would reveal to university librarians their managerial strengths and weaknesses. This will enable them make amend where necessary.
To the users of the university library: undergraduate and postgraduate students, lecturers and other research fellows, the study would help to improve library and information services provided to them. It would also serve as a reference material to students of Library and Information Science, especially those who may have interest in carrying out research in Management of University Libraries.
Scope of the Study
The study is limited to the management of university libraries. However, the study specifically focussed on the University of Abuja, Bingham University, New Karu, Nassarawa State and the Benue state University, Makurdi. The choice of Abuja is because of its sprawling metropolitan nature as one of the fastest growing Federal Capital city in Africa with a second generation university, Benue state university is preferred as the oldest state owned University in the zone, while Bingham University is chosen as a third generation private university to represent private universities in the zone, The study focussed on the assessment of planning, organisation of both information and the human resources, staffing and the control of library and information services provided in these libraries.
This material content is developed to serve as a GUIDE for students to conduct academic research
MANAGEMENT OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE NORTH CENTRAL ZONE OF NIGERIA
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