GLOBAL ISSUES AND TRENDS IN LIBRARY EDUCATION AND INFORMATION

SCIENCES IN THE 21ST CENTURY AND BEYOND

BY

NAME: DANLADI, FAVOUR ANARI

MATRICULATION NUMBER: 2018/2732

LEVEL: 400

DEPARTMENT: LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

LECTURER: DR. LASBERRY ADINDU

COURSE TITLE: INFORMATION POLICY AND ANALYSIS

COURSE CODE: LIS 423

Abstract:

The user expectations in the present society are analytical revealed in this academic work.

Currently in the global sphere, people are more dependent on digital communication. Since there

is a serious craves for everything to move towards digital transformation, library should

transform into digital library to satisfy the information needs of the user community. That on its

own becomes possible through the proper utilization of emerging technologies or ICT. And the

paper clearly says why the libraries need to transform into the global trend of libraries, why the

resources need to transform into digital or electronic resources, why the library services need to

transform into digital services in the contemporary world. As well as it defines what library

ought to be in this 21st century and beyond.

Keywords: Library, Library Education, Information Science, 21st century, Library User

expectation in the 21st century

Introduction

Quality education is the core of college education. Libraries are the second class for students due

to the extremely important position and function in quality education. Libraries are the best place

for cultivating students’ morals, the important front for improving students’ scientific and

cultural qualities, and the effective facilities for developing special technological education,

serving as favorable conditions for promoting students’ comprehensive qualities.

The main idea for libraries strengthening quality education is to build a “people-oriented”

management thought, create service equipments and environment with humanism, stick to

human service style, and improve the quality of library staff. Libraries are the place with

collected human cultural information resources, and accumulated knowledge and experiences,

and the place starting scientific and technological innovations. Libraries stand for the level of

college spiritual and cultural construction. Libraries help college students to improve and expand

their knowledge by rich stored resources, creating a quiet and harmonious study fields with

elegant and nice environment, and civilized reading atmosphere. Besides, libraries are

responsible for advocating a healthy and active cultural idea. A qualified library can provide with

more comprehensive knowledge and information for teachers and students, stimulate the

development of readers’ innovative personalities, and drive the development of divergent

thinking. Lan (2011), asserts that where there is no high-quality library, there will be no high-

quality education. Therefore, to emphasize on the function of libraries in quality education

is very necessary. We should make best use of libraries and build colleges into places cultivating

high-quality talents.
Important Functions of Libraries

Some of the important functions of the school libraries are outlined below:

1. Moral culture cultivation point

Today’s college students are the future of the country and the hope of the nation. Their moral

levels directly associate with the prosperity or the decline of the nation. How to guide college

students to build correct outlook on life, and values, to master scientific outlook on world and

methodology, and to hold noble morals and affections is the responsibility of college education,

and also the basic requirement for building harmonious college culture. In libraries, there are

numerous excellent journals, books, and information resources. The unique human culture and

knowledge treasure-house is rightly the sound base for actualizing the education function.

Libraries can achieve the goal of “educating people by reading” by circulation of books.

Libraries are the best place for cultivating students’ morals. Libraries can develop moral

education based on the advantages, helping students to correct attitudes to study and establish

study objectives. Libraries are the place that most students study. There are full of democratic

and free air. Students at similar ages prefer to communicate with each other. They can study

from others, compare self with others, affect each other, and motivate each other. In a nice

atmosphere, students get quality education and moral education. Gradually, students possess

correct values, outlook on life, and morals. The formation of quality education and students’

thoughts are different from the acquirement of knowledge and techniques that happens mainly in

class teaching. The formation is sort of self-choice. Libraries have a strong potential education

power, which can make students produce agreements on values and accept them initiatively. By

reading excellent journals and books purposely, college students can be touched and influenced.
At the same time, their morals are improved, their knowledge enlarged, and their self quality

perfected.

2. Advancement in Students’ Scientific and Cultural Quality:

To improve the scientific and cultural quality is the base for improving students’ all-around

quality, and the important ring for improving the professional technology quality and

comprehensive quality. Libraries store the most excellent human cultural legacy. They are the

place collecting and disseminating human information resources, the fruit of human wisdom, and

the important institutions for scientific and cultural education. Libraries shoulder an important

mission - disseminating scientific and cultural knowledge among people. Libraries, free from

constraints of time, space, and educational background, provide with scientific and cultural

services for students based on rich stored resources, nice reading environment, and advanced

technologies.

Social sustainable development and progress are not independent from absorbing cultural

essence. Libraries collect the most immediate human cultural information and academic

information. By holding multi-level multi-subject special lectures, libraries can satisfy readers’

needs, improving their knowledge structure. By exhibiting photos and creating “readers’ corner”,

libraries can build a strong cultural idea. By leaning in libraries, students can not only expand

their knowledge scope, but also enrich their experiences, and improve the ability of independent

thinking.

Besides, the activities developed by libraries offer opportunities for students combining

knowledge and reality, driving the promotion of modern civilization.

3. Development of Professional Technology Education

Libraries are kind of self-study education process. By independent study, students can improve

their learning efficacy, realizing the psychological experience of cognitive acquirement and

cognitive process, and achieving the organic unification of learning knowledge and learning

study. With sufficient independence, students can actualize the self-training to a great degree,

and also the formation of subjective consciousness, the play of creative and design ability, the

activity of divergent thinking, and the complete understanding of experiences and fruits, not only

improving the study efficiency, but also realizing the psychological needs for self-values.

College education focuses on class teaching and teachers lecturing. Due to differences in

educational background, abilities, intelligence, ages, sex, interests, and learning objectives,

everyone has a special learning methods and laws. Therefore, students need to strengthen their

professional knowledge by independent learning. Libraries, because of the rich stored resources,

nice learning environment, and advanced technologies, overcome the dullness and the constraints

of class teaching, rightly satisfying students’ needs, offering powerful information guaranty and

technological support for improving students’ professional technologies, and becoming an

irreplaceable important base for students’ learning. As college students learn professional

technologies, they may face some difficult issues. Then, they have to research some relevant

documents and resources in libraries, which can help them to consume and solve these issues. In

addition, except class teaching, there are also practices for students, such as professional thesis

and graduation design. Therefore, college students must research amounts of professional

materials in order to complete these practices. So, libraries should strengthen their advantages

based on students’ needs, playing a role in professional education, and exerting the effects on

students by excellent services.

4. Advancement of students comprehension quality

Libraries have rich, systematic, and all-round information materials that are the material

conditions for libraries participating in scientific intelligence transmission. In an information

society, libraries’ scientific intelligence function has been enhanced. In colleges, either teachers

or students can live without libraries because they need information consultation that must be in

time and libraries can provide the most updated and fastest timely intelligence for them. The

information consultation of libraries can help teachers and students update their knowledge and

understand the newest trends inside and outside, that is the so-called book scientific intelligence.

Along with the social development, college education should help students make best use of

libraries to obtain and enlarge knowledge fields. Libraries, named as “the palace of science and

culture”, service as important conditions for improving students’ comprehensive quality by rich

information resources. Libraries should continue to expand the service scope, open up

blackboard news and windows, and hold small academic research conferences. Blackboard and

windows can publicize the most latest scientific intelligence and information, report on hot news,

and introduce different topics during different periods. Small academic research conferences can

be held periodically, which can make reasonable use of places and resources, attract students to

join in, stimulate students to think and explore, training the interests in learning and the

development of intelligence together. Due to the development of modern information network

communication, the network is more open, faster, and vivid. Therefore, network turns into the

place with the communication, confliction, and penetration of different knowledge.

Amounts of various information rush into the network, weakening the effects of distances.

Libraries, as service institutions focusing on information production and intelligence

transmission, have already turn to modern network information service from traditional

document service. Libraries guide students to cultivate a consciousness of information and an

ability of acquiring information, helping them form the ability of dealing with some digital
information. Information quality can value students’ abilities of coping with knowledge

information, which is an objective requirement for college students that is advanced by the

development of network, digitalization, and information in modern society, and also the

important content of libraries’ educational function. Libraries should offer classes for document

retrieval and information retrieval, training students to master relevant information technologies

and information tools, guiding students to find the right documents and information by using

retrieval tools, improving students’ ability of acquiring and evaluating information, and finally

actualizing the educational goal of promoting students’ information quality.

Library Education

To obtain education in librarianship, one has to pass through the educational

system to the university level where it is hoped that one would attain the skills/

competencies needed to contribute positivenly to libraries and related information

service organizations in the country. Although library education can be acquired

from colleges of education and polytechnics, the products of such schools are not recognized as

professional librarians: only a first degree from a university is

accepted as the foundation for library professional training in Nigeria (Ogundipe

2005). This chapter therefore focuses on library education from the perspective

of universities.

Information Science

The first known usage of the term "information science" was in 1955. An early definition of

Information science (going back to 1968, the year when the American Documentation Institute

renamed itself as the American Society for Information Science and Technology) states:

"Information science is that discipline that investigates the properties and behavior of
information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing

information for optimum accessibility and usability. It is concerned with that body of knowledge

relating to the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation,

transmission, transformation, and utilization of information. This includes the investigation of

information representations in both natural and artificial systems, the use of codes for efficient

message transmission, and the study of information processing devices and techniques such as

computers and their programming systems. It is an interdisciplinary science derived from and

related to such fields as mathematics, logic, linguistics, psychology, computer technology,

operations research, the graphic arts, communications, management, and other similar fields. It

has both a pure science component, which inquiries into the subject without regard to its

application, and an applied science component, which develops services and products." (Borko,

1968, p.3).

An information scientist is an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree or high level of

subject knowledge, who provides focused information to scientific and technical research staff in

industry or to subject faculty and students in academia.

The 21st Century and Beyond Library

The features of 21 century library are not supposed to be the same with the libraries of old

(ancient and modern libraries). When you enter a 21 century library, there are some things

you look out for. Research has shown that the best libraries in the world have a common feature.

They are not just regarded as the best libraries for no reason. They have significant qualities.

According to Worldscholarshipforum.com (2022), the makeups of good libraries include the

following:

1. The best libraries in the world mostly have natural light

 2. In the best libraries in the world, the shelves are easy to reach

3. In the best libraries in the world, technology is a forefront. Technology is accessible to

patrons and visible to staff

4. The best libraries in the world also have features that allow for seating for collaboration

and for independent work

5. The best libraries ion the world has lots of comfortable furniture

6. The best libraries in the world mostly have a social space for interaction and knowledge

exchange

7. The best libraries in the world have a quiet space for contemplation

8. The best libraries in the world mostly have a neutral and trusted space for public use.

9. The best libraries in the world mostly have a good range of books

10. The best libraries in the world mostly have longer opening hours

11. The best libraries in the world mostly have core library service for free

12. The best libraries in the world mostly have help from knowledgeable librarians

Challenges facing the 21st century libraries

Private School Blog of Nigeria (2011) states that problem areas in the development of school

libraries in Nigeria include:

1. Lack of legislation,

2. Shortage of funds,

3. Poor accommodations,

4. Unavailability of trained staff,

5. Lack of relevant material, and

6. Apathy on the part of school administrators and the government

Recommendations

1. Library Inspection: There should be an overall inspection team from the Federal Ministry

of Education who the State Ministry of Education report to and in respect to library

inspection a special team comprising of librarians and educationist should be set apart

strictly for library inspection. The Federal Ministry of Education is supposed to be a

supervisory body over all types of schools from the Federal, State to the Local

Government level; therefore they should ensure uniformity of standard. It is also meant to

draw up the curriculum for schools and the library is an essential aspect that should be

involved in it and the government should ensure policy implementation at all levels. They

should meet and discussed at the end of each school calendar year, the state of schools

and school library, the implementation of policy and curriculum development should be a

top priority of their discussion at each seating.

2. Involvement of Librarians in School Curriculum: The need to implement and define the

role of libraries independently in the national policy on education is suggested as part of

the recommendation. For teachers and librarians to work effectively towards developing

the educational sector, librarians should be involved in the curriculum development. For

any effective learning and teaching to take place there must be libraries. The use of

libraries should be introduced in the curriculum, as it will help students acquire a good

knowledge on study tools and skills. Elaturoti (2009) opined that a library period should

be created on the school time-table during which the information literacy skills (basic

library use skills) could be taught the pupils. He further reiterated that school library

media centre as an integral part of the school system contributes immensely to the

effective implementation of the school curriculum and should be accorded the status by

all proprietors of schools. Teacher-librarians should organize programs like excursion

 and visitation for pupils and students to school, special and academic libraries. The

interview concluded with the researcher asking how librarians can contribute to

improving our educational system and how children could be encouraged to read and use

the library. All the interviewees stated that library periods should be included in our

curriculum and librarians should be employed in our schools, staffs of the ministry were

of the opinion that the help of librarians is needed to be engaged to revive our educational

system. Many of the interviewees agreed that librarians play a major role in education

because of their multidisciplinary nature. Librarians training allow them to venture into

different fields of knowledge and they remain very relevant to each area. They coincided

that librarians can help teachers through the use of selective dissemination of information

by being a part of the curricular planning to package a more qualitative and quantitative

lecture to the students. Diversifying they can partner with teachers to improve their

teaching methods and this way librarians can be a major factor in the improvement of the

Education System.

3. Provision of Adequate Funds: Provisions should be made for teachers and librarians to

brainstorm to develop the education system, through the use of new methods and new

technologies as this will improve the teaching methods. Librarians should be trained and

encouraged by the government through making funds available to build the library

collection. This will go a long way to improve the library resources for both teachers and

students who will need to consult them. There should also be a team work between the

ICT systems persons and the teacher librarian, so the ICT skills can be used to get

necessary information for teachers and students. The time table in schools should include

library periods and students should be encouraged to use the library by both teachers and

librarians.

4. Working Relationship between government agencies and library workers:

Conclusion

The future of library education and information science in the globe is no doubt lies in the hands

of the library schools whose main duty it is to provide the necessary manpower. For libraries to

be effective, especially in the face of today's technological advancement, there

is need for library schools to reposition themselves for professional relevance by taking

necessary steps that would ensure the production of library school graduates capable of manning

the 21st-century library.

References
Borko, H. (1968). Information science: What is it? American Documentation 19(1), 3¬5.
Elaturoti, David F. (2009) The School Library Media Centre in Effective Implementation of
School Curriculum in Oyesiku, Ogunsaju and Oni (2009) ed. Contemporary School
Administrator in Nigeria. (pp. 206-218) Ijagun, Ijebu-Ode: Tai Solarin University of
Education Press.

Ogundipe, O. O. 2005. The Librarianship of Developing Countries: The Librarianship of

Diminished Resources. Lagos: Ikofa Press.

Privateschoolsinnigeria.com (2022). Problem areas in the development of school libraries in

Nigeria https://privateschoolsinnigeria.com/blog/?p=153
Lan Yang (2011:1). Orientation and Functions of Library in Quality Education of College.
International Education Studies Vol. 4, No. 2; May 2011. Extracted from
https://www.ccsenet.org/ies/

Worldscholarshipforum.com (2022). What makes a library exceptional and why do I need the best
libraries? Extracted from https://worldscholarshipforum.com/best-libraries -in-the-world/