ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN TEACHING LIBRARY INSTRUCTION COURSE IN NIGERIA UNIVERSITIES

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Enite Anita Urhefe

Assistant Librarian

 Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Delta State.

E-mail: anitaurhefe@yahoo.com 

ABSTRACT

The Library instruction course is aimed at teaching students the techniques of effective use of library to enable them appreciate the importance of the library. Majority of students, especially the secondary school leavers who gain admission for higher studies and who by that privileged find themselves in large libraries have difficulties in retrieving information from the library and some do not even consider the library as an  important organ in the university. This is the reason why university libraries teach the Use of Library course. The teaching of the course enables new students to acquire the skills for using the library.  However majority of students still find it difficult to use the library resources. This paper therefore discusses issues and challenges facing the teaching of the course. Prominent among these challenges are lack of commitment by the university management which results to inadequate funding of the course and lack of standardization in the teaching methodology of the course. The recommendations as obtained from the study includes the need for proper commitment by  university management and  cooperation of academic staff  both from the university library and other faculties members.