Professor Chinwe Veronica Anunobi, the National Librarian/Chief Executive Officer of the National Library of Nigeria and a professor of library and information sciences speaks in this Interview with CLEMENT IDOKO on the 60th anniversary of the National Library of Nigeria (NLN), milestones and challenges among others. Excerpts:
The national library of Nigeria, established in September 1964 is 60 years old. How has it fared?
Yes, the National Library of Nigeria was established in September 1964 but we opened our doors to users on November 6, 1964 in Lagos. We came in four years after the country got her Independence and that is significant. This is to tell you the importance of the library. The library was 57 years old when I came on board. It was moved from Lagos to Abuja and it has lived up to its mandate. Its mandate as it was cut out since the 1960s, remains current, it has not changed. The mandate of a National Library is the same all over the world be it Library of Congress, British Library, Library of South Africa, name it. It is a heritage and the National Library of Nigeria has also been able to live up to that expectation. The library has been preserving the heritage of the nation and that is why we are able to count over 5.5 million titles of resources collected from 1960 till now
We also have above 13 million volumes. The second part is not about collection and preservation but it is about getting people to read and the library since 1981 when it had its first readership promotion in Lagos, has been living up to its mandate of promoting reading. The driving force is to “collect it, preserve it and make people read.’ In 2000, we held a readership promotion at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, and afterwards it was taken down to the zones. Coming to my eight-point agenda in office, we realised that reading campaigns should not only be for the elite, so, we decided to take it to the hinterland and hard-to-reach areas. We advocated and sensitised authors on page format and styles and we assigned them the International Standard Numbers.
It is about two decades since the contract for the National Library headquarters building was awarded but the project remains abandoned, what is happening in spite of the directive by the former Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Aadamu for the Tertiary Education Trust Fund to take over the completion of the project?
Yes, the ministry is doing something about it but the work is still ongoing. We would be happy if it is completed because we at the headquarters are the beneficiaries of the property. The former minister is in the right position to answer the reason for the delay, but all I know is that efforts are ongoing. Sometime this year, I was informed that the ministry is packaging something around the project and I’m sure it’s a process that is yet to be completed.
You were appointed on September2, 2021, as the National Librarian/ CEO of the library by the former President Muhammadu Buhari, were you really expecting the upgrade?
I wasn’t expecting any appointments. I was busy doing my thing in the university before I was appointed. I heard the news just like you and I was invited to come and take my appointment letter.
You had a background in biology education, what motivated you back then to switch to library and information science?
My interest is providential. First, that providence started with the fact that when I was an undergraduate, I loved the way librarians serve people. I don’t know what to do about the kind of services people get now these days. On those days when you enter the library and you make a request or ask for materials on what you are writing on, they will quickly direct you to where the information is and you will be happy you have them. I was always fascinated by such brisk services, so I said I would like to do this type even as an undergraduate scientist.
So, when the opportunity came, I just flowed into it. I thought of working in the university environment while I was studying for my Masters. I also chose to work in the library when I was observing my Youth Service. I entered the library profession as a graduate assistant. I graduated as a biologist, but I started working in the library as a graduate assistant. That was why I said it’s providential. I just love giving people assistance and I’m fulfilled doing that. Along the line, having been exposed to the work of librarians, the passion and attitude with which I saw people work around me wasn’t what I expected, so I started experiencing some mixed feelings that I had to start consulting. I was privy to the information that told me there is a room to serve better at the top and since I already had a Masters degree in Library and Information Science, I just proceeded for my PhD in the same course and here I am today.
It is obvious that the national library has so many challenges including the inability to complete the headquarters building under construction for about two decades; can you share some of them?
Yes, our major challenges are funding, accommodation and staffing. We have only 619 staff deployed to all the 34 branches of our libraries across the states of the federation. This has really limited our operations. The national library is a parastatal and I don’t know whether it is grade A or grade B under the Ministry of Education. What I know is we chief executives have meetings regularly with the minister. For me, it is not about the meeting, but the value that is placed on education. For instance, in the university system, students are made to pay and when they do, their money is used to run the system and that is how the universities manage to survive but ours is not like that. The condition of the National Library is a reflection of the place the country has for education. We have spoken out, we have written, but what all this translates to is what I do not understand. I have always written to the budget office to say, please help the national library so it doesn’t die. When it dies, nobody will come from the global north to ask you why you allow the Library that we suffered to set up to die?
What other things do you do to improve on the reading culture in the country apart from the sensitisation or read campaign programmes?
I wonder what the situation would have been if the national library had not been crying out for improving the reading culture in the country. I deliberately used the word crying. The reading culture would have been very low. It may interest you to know that the reading campaign started in 1981. Right now, I have been advocating a ‘National Reading Day.’ If the president can come out to read to the entire nation, even if it is just two minutes to five minutes, on a National Reading Day, that will no doubt send a lot of signals. Apart from that I have also been pushing for ‘Library Hour’ in schools
Before now, there was always a Library Hour in schools. However, the issue came up again recently, when we went to the National Directors of National Libraries Conference, where people came from all over the world. In a country like Canada, each class in a school has a day when it visits the library, and all the classes will not go the same day. That is the day they are going to pick the books. The children will pick the books they will read for the week. I have been pushing for this because I know the benefits. I’m of a science background and through constant reading in the library; I was encouraged to read other books. In higher institutions, when you see those children who are coming from schools that do not have these libraries, you will know them. We have done a survey on fresh graduates to know their approaches to reading and dispositions to the library. Reading Hour is in the national policy, but it’s not implemented. It has now become the time teachers who miss their classes utilize to fill in the gaps.
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