Library and Information Services for Socio-Political Rebirth in Nigeria: The Role of Public Libraries

Abstract The study investigated library and information services for socio-political rebirth in Nigeria. To this end, three pertinent research objectives were raised to guide the conduct of the study. The survey type of descriptive research design was adopted for a population of 59 library staff from Delta State Library Board, Asaba and Edo State Library Board, Benin City in South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria. Using complete enumerative sampling technique, questionnaire was adopted as the tool for data collection. Out of the 59 copies of questionnaire distributed, 55 were retrieved and found useful, constituting 93% response rate. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that the vital library and information services for socio-political rebirth in Nigeria include community club and community involvement services, internet access services, research support services, organizing makerspace programmes, awareness and sensitization campaign, readership campaign, computer and entrepreneurial training amongst others. Furthermore, the study showed that majority of the library and information services for socio-political rebirth in Nigeria are rendered less often (occasionally) due to the problems faced by public libraries in services delivery which includes poor funding, epileptic power supply, lack of adequate support from the government, inadequate library infrastructure, poor users’ perception of the library and poor reading culture among Nigerians. Thus, the study recommended that the government should have total commitment in the provision of infrastructure, recruitment of competent librarians and improved welfare packages for effective service delivery among public libraries in the state. Therefore, all state government should make library development a top priority.