Harnessing Information Technology for the 21st Century: Library Education in Nigeria‪.‬

Introduction Library education in Nigeria has come a long way. Since the first library school in 1960 at the University College, Ibadan, several changes have been witnessed in the society at large and in the library profession in particular. The end of the 1980s saw the establishment of several other library schools in Nigeria awarding qualifications up to the Ph.D. level. However, at the dawn of the 1990s, new trends and developments worldwide pose great challenges for library education in Nigeria. Inadequate infrastructure, outdated curricula, poor human and financial resources, lack of access to necessary information and resources for learning, and poor communication among key players in the library schools are some of the major issues library schools in Nigeria are contending with. This is in spite of developments in information and communications technology, which have opened new doors in every profession and segment of the society. This predisposes the library schools to source for alternative ways to look at both access to and quality of library education and learning. One way of transforming the teachinglearning process is to properly harness and integrate the efficacy of information and communications technology into library education and training in Nigeria.