Page 18 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Unit 2: Socio-Economic Development and Role of Libraries

consumption, are not far fetched from what they were during the early Christian missionary efforts Notes
in Nigeria and what obtains at the moment. The Libraries create literacy among the people, give
public lectures. Library services improve knowledge and skills for positive productivity as a tool for
national development. According to Metzger, (1991), Library services are needed to enable the
individual develop full potentials and widening the horizons of perception, interests and skills. Other
needs for library services include; public enlightenment or rights in the society, understanding social
values and expected conduct in public life; assisting to adjust to existing social, political, spiritual and
economic activities of the society, to cultivate and maintain reading culture and promotion of good
literatures. Onshwakpor, J. E. summed up the need for library services from the perspective of adult
education when he observed that, “If adult education is to have a greater share in the molding and
building of a happier individual and a better society, the providers of adult education must go beyond
their roles as literacy facilitators to a more practical role of providing libraries for sustaining the
newly acquired skills of adult learners.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. ...... described library as a learned institution equipped with treasures of knowledge main-
tained, organized and managed by trained personnel to educate the childern.
2. The town library of Nigeria was founded in the year ...... .
3. ...... described books as the shrines.

2.2 The Role of Libraries in Educational Development

Education has been defined as a complex of social processes of acquiring knowledge and experience,
formally or otherwise. Ogunsheye (1981) states that it involves the total apparatus used for the
development of the individual.
The library enables the individual to obtain spiritual, inspirational, and recreational activity through
reading, and therefore the opportunity of interacting with the society’s wealth and accumulated
knowledge. The library can be seen as an extension of education.
Library services are needed to keep the skills that have been acquired through literacy classes alive
by the provision of good literature. If education is to have a greater share in the moulding and
building of a happier individual and a better society, the providers of education must go further
than their roles as literacy facilitators to a more practical role of providing libraries for sustaining
the newly acquired skills of adult learners.
Organizing a library to aid education calls for an atmosphere of friendliness and a useful collection.
Education facilitators should involve librarians in planning education programmes and learners
should be given library instruction.
‘Education’ and ‘Library’ are two inseparable indivisible concepts, both being fundamentally and
synchronically related to and co-existent with each other. One cannot be separated from the other.
None of them is an end in itself; rather both of them together are a means to an ultimate end. One
dies as soon as the other perishes. One survives as long as the other exists. This inter-relation,
co-existence, if you like, this dependence of one upon the other have been coming down from the
birth of human civilization to the posterity through a process of evolution in accord with varied
needs, changes, and circumstances of various stages of human life.

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