‘FG determined to flush out quack librarians’

THE Federal Government says it is determined to flush out quacks from the national library system as part of efforts to strengthen the sub-subsector.

It has accordingly approved a point-of-graduation induction for qualified candidates with effect from the 2018/2019 academic session.

Registrar and chief executive of the Librarians’ Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN), Professor Michael Afolabi, disclosed this during the mandatory workshop on Electronic Resource Management Systems in libraries held at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

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Afolabi said certification of librarians is the core mandate of LRCN and that already, the council, a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Education, has registered 5,437 librarians.

The induction at point of graduation is part of efforts to increase the number of certified librarians in the country.

He said: “LRCN has secured an approval to commence induction at points of graduation. This will start from the 2018/2019 academic session.

“We are determined to ensure that more graduates are certified in order to emerge as globally competitive professionals. We are pushing this move further to ensure that quacks are flushed out of the system,” he said.

Also, the LRCN has written to all employers of labour to recruit and promote only certified librarians.

The LRCN Establishment Act (Act1 of 1995) empowers the council to determine who would be called a librarian and the level of knowledge and skills required to become a librarian in Nigeria.

The registrar, therefore, called on all holders of degrees in Library and Information Science to register with the LRCN and become certified librarians.

In addition, LRCN has reviewed the curriculum for Library and Information Science to be used in all school libraries across the country.

The new curriculum and benchmarks provide information of facilities, staffing, nomenclature of LIS degrees, faculty of domicile and course content.

Aside registration, LRCN prioritises capacity building for librarians on contemporary issues in the Library and Information Science (LIS) sector, hence the workshop on Electronic Resource Management Systems in libraries.

Afolabi said the workshop was designed to stimulate discussions among the LIS professionals about current innovations in electronic resource management.