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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study

The library in a community provides a unique service that should be accessible to everybody. Library is an institution that acquires, organizes, processes and disseminates information materials in all disciplines to those that need them with little or no expense on their part. The public library is a type of library from inception which has been regarded as a free library set up to provide service to everyone. It serves the community; hence it is referred to as peoples university (Adimora, 1999). Of all types of libraries, public library has the most heterogeneous clients to serve. The services are directed at everyone including literate, non- literate, students, teachers, farmers, industrialists, doctors, bankers, civil servants, businessmen, poor, wealthy, able, and disabled peoples etc. The public library must aim to support the general  interest of the community it serves so as to contribute to the quality of life and add to the totality of man’s happiness and awareness of himself, others and his environment. The UNESCO public library manifesto issued in 1949, revised in 1972 and 1994 declares: ‘the public library is the local centre of information, making all kinds of knowledge and information readily available to its users.” The services of the public library are provided on the basis of equality of access to all regardless of age, sex, race, religion, nationality, language or social status. Specific services and materials must be provided for those users who cannot for whatever reason use the regular services and materials for example, linguistic minority, peoples with disabilities or people in hospital or prison. The same manifesto gave the key missions that should be at the core of public library  services as follows:- creating and strengthening reading habits in children from an early age, supporting both individual and self-conducted education as well as formal education at all level, providing opportunities for personal creative development, stimulating the imagination and creativity of children and young  people, creating awareness of cultural heritage, appreciating the arts/scientific achievements and innovations,, providing access to cultural expression of all  performing arts, fostering inter – cultural dialogue and favoring  cultural diversity, supporting the tradition, ensuring access for citizens to all sorts of community information, providing adequate information services to local enterprises/associations and interest groups, facilitating the development of information and computer literacy skills, and also supporting and participating in literacy activities and programs for all age groups, and initiating such activities if necessary, (Edoka, 2000). Achebe (2005) notes that the study of ancient and medieval library leaves no one in doubt about the value of public libraries in education. She listed some protagonists of public library services such as Edward Edwards of Britain, Melvin Dewey of America and Antonio Pannizi of Italy who at various times in the history of libraries worked tirelessly to establish their public libraries for the purpose of bringing education and knowledge to the doorsteps of their people thereby encouraging these people to read without necessarily going to school. Olanlokun (1993) and Achebe (2005) were of the view that the first public library in Nigeria was the Lagos municipal library which was a subscription library with branches in parts of the country. These were followed by the Nigerian government public relation office library located at Lagos, and the numerous reading rooms in the Eastern, Western, and Northern Nigeria. The objectives of public libraries are thus: providing information needs of the community, support their educational efforts [both formal and informal], encourage purposeful use of leisure, encourage and promote reading – habit especially among children. This study focuses on reference service which is one of the services offered by public libraries. The provision of reference service is an important function of a public library. Readers are provided this service on requests. People have different reference queries that need to be solved by the librarian. Hence it is generally a person –to –person service. In some cases, reference processes involve interviewing the reader to enable the reference librarian articulate the problem of the user clearly. Assistance is necessary in fulfilling functions, and a specific administrative organization of qualified personnel must be provided. Alokun (2003) was of the view that reference services involve assisting readers in obtaining information from the library. Consequently, the main objective of reference service is to find precisely the right materials to solve immediate problems. Reference service is also the various library activities deliberately designed to facilitate easy availability of information Edoka (2000). Many public libraries were established in the last one hundred years in several parts of the country and they give prominence to reference service. For instance, the Lagos town council library established in the early 1950s provided reference service to adult users who studies mainly for public examinations. The Lagos municipal library opened its main and branch library services to the public and provided children reference services. In the Western states of Nigeria, mobile reference service and loan services were provided in the state capital in the 1970s even though other cities and towns in the state had no access to such service. The regional reference library was opened in Kaduna in 1963 and branches were opened in other parts of the region. The divisional libraries in the Eastern parts such as Onitsha, Enugu, Awka, also gives prominence to reference services to their clients. More recently, the various state library boards give prominence to reference services even though most of them were poorly funded (Olanlokun, 2003). Some reference services offered to clientele are as follows: Inter–Library loan service, user education service, Current awareness service, reprographic service, computer literature search/online searches, Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) etc. Inter – library loan service occurs when a library does not have some materials needed by users and instead of discharging the user, the library will seek for that particular material from another library to make sure that the user get the appropriate material he/she needed so as not to be stranded. Having identified their areas of needs and requests, the borrowing and lending process can also take advantage of the internet for both requesting and delivery of inter-library loan materials. The essence of a library engaging in inter-library loan is to enrich its collection and provide improved and qualitative services to users. User education service is another type of reference service offered to user of the library. In this case the reference librarian acquaints the users on how to use the library and the resources in the library. User education is instruction given to readers to help them make use of the library. It is concerned with the whole information and communication process and one part of this involves the total interaction of the users with the library. Generally, the reasons for user education centers on issue of acquainting the users with the library building itself, staff, library tools etc. the absence of this is why the users easily get frustrated when the time come for them to use the library. Current Awareness Service; this service involves displaying of new accessions in the library over a period of not less than one week for users to browse through. Periodic exhibition are also held on topical issues for academic and research interest. Reprographic service involves making available materials that may not given out on loan in print [photocopy and printing] and non-print [CD-Burning, Scanning] formats. Authors like Abel, Gogdil and Zaka (2002) stated that whatever be the future, the services of information provision will continue to be an essential instrument of human welfare. Similarly, Margeston [2002] also recognizes the importance of dynamic access to information. Edoka (2000) on his part avers that the entire human and material resources in the library are put in place at a considerable expense for the overall purpose of effective services to the library users.

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