ABSTRACT
The study title “Assessment of Undergraduate degree Programmes of Library and Information Science available in the library schools in Northern states of Nigeria” was embarked upon in order to investigate Undergraduate degree programme of library and information science in selected University-base library schools in Northern states of Nigeria. Six research questions were formulated and answered. A survey research methodology was adopted .and documentary sources and semi-structured questionnaire were the instruments used to collect data. The responses from the sampled of the four library schools and their lecturers under study numbering 70 were studied and analyzed, using frequency tables and percentages and suggestions are made. The study discovered the degree programmes of library and information science available are, Bachelor of Library and Information Science (B. LIS), B- Tech. Library and Information Science (LIS) and B-Tech. Library and Information Technology (LIT) The requirement for admission into Bachelor‟s Degree programme are through UTME/post-UME and Direct-entry (DE). The finding showed that qualified lecturers and fund to acquire necessary and adequate facilities, such as internet connectivity, laboratory equipment for students are inadequate. The study therefore concluded that, differences in the programmes have no significant impact on the competency of librarians produced. In view of this numbers of recommendations were made with a view to improving the quality of the Library and Information Science Programmes in the library schools.
Background to the Study
Library science education and training programme in Nigeria is linked to the general social and political history of the country. The mode of library education and training in Nigeria during the colonial period up to 1960 was conducted through short courses organized for the staff of local reading rooms and the Native Authority libraries. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century‟s Library Science Education in many of the former British Colonies derived its educational and professional structures from the United Kingdom (UK) standard. Carroll (2011) reported that, the British model for library science education included training in the workplace in an apprenticeship mode and eventually involved examinations in both general and specialist knowledge set by the local professional association or Library Association (LA) of U K. However, the only method of becoming a librarian in Nigeria was by taking the Associate ship of the British Library Association (ALA), either by attending British library schools or by correspondence courses offered by the British Association of Assistant Librarians or by part-time study. This was the practice after the collapse of the regional library training institute established at Achimota Ganah in 1944, to help prepare the first corps of librarians for Nigeria and other Anglophone countries of West Africa. (Ahmed 2012) The ALA training was mostly foreign-oriented and the services in the existing libraries where the products worked were not customized towards meeting the increasing local demands for library services. As more libraries were established in Nigeria to provide information support to the users, the need was expressed for trained librarians to run the services. According to Otike, (2012) initially, the early libraries were manned by expatriate librarians educated in the west; therefore something had to be done to train librarians locally. Situation was made worse with the departure of expatriate librarians immediately after independence. 1.1.2 Concept of Library and Information Science The concept of Library and Information Science (LIS) has been explained by various scholars. Singh (2008) defined LIS as a profession concerned with the knowledge and skill by which records of human communication are collected organized and utilized, the librarian is a mediator between man and the graphic records that his and previous generations have produced and the goal of librarian is to maximize the social utility of these records for the benefit of humanity. Similarly, Ozioko and Nwabueze (2010) further lamented that, LIS as a discipline concerned with the study of the principles and skills required for systematic collection, organization and use of society‟s information resources in libraries. Library science programmes focus intensively on the organizational structures that contain.
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