UNILORIN rewards Researcher of the Year with a car

University of Ilorin, (UNILORIN), has rewarded its researcher of the Year, Professor Adeyinka Tella of the Department of Library and Information Science, with a car.

According to the university’s bulletinTella teaches in the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences.

The award, which came with a car, was the highlight of the 14th edition of the university’s merit awards ceremony.

“The event marked the end of the 37th and 38th combined convocation ceremonies of the university,” it said.

In his reaction, Tella stated that his current research focus is on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology.

He explained that he had earlier won the Outstanding Paper Award of the Emerald Literacy Awards for his article on Robots and Public Libraries, published in the journal of the Library Hi Tech News.

The don hinted that the paper had generated a lot of excitement among Library Scientists because robotic technology has now entered the Library Space as robots now shelf and re-shelf books.

“They also help reduce the fatigue of library users and get them refreshed by entertaining them, among other functions,” he said.

He opined that having the fourth industrial revolution in a library “promises to stem the social malaise of poor reading culture in Nigeria.”

The publication added that Tella was a commonwealth scholar in his PhD days, who had written extensively on integration of modern technology into public and academic libraries.

According to it, other winners of the various categories of the university’s merit awards included the 18 recently retired professors in the university.

It listed some of the researchers to include Professor Jacob Gbadeyan of the Department of Mathematics, Professor Michael Fakomogbon of Education Technology, and Professor Esther Omosewo of Science Education.